


The One, The After

by FancyFulOfLife



Series: Time Has Way [1]
Category: Alternate Universe - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Don’t Like Don’t Read, F/M, Mental Ilness, Out of Character, Underage Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22291438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancyFulOfLife/pseuds/FancyFulOfLife
Summary: Each second defines you. Builds you. Life is hard. Life is pain. It makes you who you are. How you interact with those around you. How you make the decisions in your life. How you react to the actions surrounding you. One moment can change everything. Nobody knows that more than Tony Stark’s daughter.(Previously Morgan Maria Potts-Stark)
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Time Has Way [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604554
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction. This is not meant to bash or hate on any characters. I’ve been working on this since May, wanting it to be perfect. That’s the thing though, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s been my distraction. It’s been my imagination at work. So, I share this with you hoping you enjoy it. Hoping it distracts you. If it doesn’t that’s okay because this is my narrative. That’s what fanfic is all about, isn’t it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the beginning.........

Chapter 1

“Mommy! Mommy! Look at all the pretty birds!” I yell as I see all the different birds that weren’t there before, along with ducks and fish jumping up in the lake through the window from my vantage point on the floor in front of the fireplace. I watch an eagle swoop down from the sky grabbing one of the bigger fish. So many new things that weren’t there before that I’m in awe of. I sit there, just watching all the new additions to my world that I only read about and imagined, when suddenly a dark cloud descends covering the sun.

I cover my ears as the alarms in the cabin start to blare. Happy, May and my mommy appear in the living room from the kitchen.

“It’s Protocol Rescue, “ I hear my mommy say, “something is happening at the compound.”

Daddy left to go there a couple of weeks ago to help his friends because that’s what you do when they need you; but I get to talk to him every night on the helmet he set up for me. It’s our secret. Mommy doesn’t like me around the helmets very much.

I heard them the night before he left, I was supposed to be asleep but was hiding behind the couch instead. Mommy had asked him when was he going to rest. Daddy doesn’t sleep much. Sometimes mommy will yell when I don’t sleep because so many thoughts go through my head at the same time.

Mommy does that sometimes, yell when I do something like daddy. Daddy says his brain is like that too. Then mommy will sometimes cuddle me and call me her smart little bug.

He talks about someone named Peter a lot with Aunt May but I’ve never met him. She cries sometimes when they do.

I got to say hi to all his friends.

The big green guy with glasses is funny. There is also a guy with long hair and a beard. He doesn’t ever talk and he looks sad, like he needs a hug. The rest of daddy’s friends say hi. Then there is the one tall guy that came to see daddy, Steve daddy calls him, with blond hair that asks me what I did that day.

I sent my favorite stuffed doggie and blanket because he looked sad and lonely when he came to see daddy. He gives me the giggles and my tummy gets all fluttery. The nice lady named Nat tells me how pretty and smart I am. 

Then we say goodnight and I love you, 3000. Steve, because he said it was okay for me to call him that, asked me once why we say that and I told him because that’s the highest number I can count to. He told me I’m very smart then daddy told him that I was HIS child after all and that I was already testing at the first grade level. Steve made a remark about me being like my daddy and then daddy said something I couldn’t make out about ice.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. keeps repeating code Shriveled Prune until mommy shuts her off.

“Happy and I will make sure she will be fine while you go to the compound.” I hear May tell my mommy.

Happy interjects with a quiet concern “you had quit a few glasses of wine with lunch.”

A quiet argument I can’t quit make out follows. “He’s my husband.” I hear her say.

“It’s time for her nap.” I listen to mommy tell them. Which really isn’t fair because I would rather go exploring than take a nap. Naps are for babies and I’m four now. Besides, there are so many new things to see to sleep it away. 

Mommy gives me a tight hug and kisses my cheek “I love you so much, my little bug,” tears are running down her face.

“It’s going to be okay, mommy.” I tell her.

I don’t know why but for some reason I just know.

I watch from the window as mommy goes into daddy’s garage, I’m not allowed in there unless daddy is with me but I like the gadgets and Dum-E is very cuddly. I look on in awe as my mommy walks out in blue armor, wearing the same helmet I had found weeks earlier, then flies off into the dark cloud.

I give Happy a hug when he picks me up. He has tears on his face, too.

I look out through the crack in my bedroom door downstairs. Happy has his head leaned back against the couch, mouth open as he snores. May is asleep next to him with her head on his chest. I sneak out my bedroom window, using the wooden planks for steps as I climb down and go to my daddy’s garage.

The cloud is gone but the sky is a funny unnatural color.

Dum-E gives me a pat on the head in greeting when I open the door. The lights automatically turning on. Me and F.R.I.D.A.Y. have a girl code, she calls it.

The blue suit where I got the helmet from is gone. Mommy has it on. Daddy would be happy to know that since he thinks she never wears anything he gets her.

I like daddy’s garage. He has a lot of fun gadgets to play and tinker with but I haven’t been allowed in here unless I’m with daddy since I tore apart the toaster and tried to make Dum-E a friend. Daddy took me to see a friend of his and ever since he lets me tinker more. He even got me my own engineering set.

Mommy got mad about the toaster, giving me a spanking while daddy was out in the garage and sending me to my room but daddy made me a sandwich later. I didn’t mean to tear up the toaster. I just wanted Dum-E to have a buddy. He’s all alone in the garage sometimes and he shouldn’t be alone. Nobody should be alone.

I heard daddy and Uncle Happy talking once about how postpartum depression changed mommy. It’s nice to have daddy around all the time though and run his business from home while mommy plays with me. Daddy does too because F.R.I.D.A.Y. imitates him a lot on the phone.

Plus, it was really cool putting all the parts together. I got to play with Dum-E and work on his circuitry as daddy worked on some little discs while he had what he called information on old friends pulled up on his holographic computer.

Outside the wind starts picking up and the sky turns a dark deep purple color.

“Morgan, dear, why don’t you go back inside the cabin now? Go to your room little one.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. gently commands. There’s something different about her voice, her tone.

I start running towards the garage doors when I see two gold bracelets, a clear two sided phone and a flat triangle that I once heard daddy call an arc reactor lying on the floor under his workbench. I grab them, also stopping to grab the two discs on his workbench, then go running back to the cabin, climbing up the side and into the window as the wind speeds and up lightning cracks the sky over and over, going in all different directions. I hide my treasures in my backpack’s hidden compartment I built into it, mommy doesn’t know it is there, and climb into my bed.

All the sudden the wind stops, the sky turns from the deep purple to gray and orange. An eerie silence grows around me. It’s like every living creature has come to a standstill. My tummy and chest starts hurting as I pull the covers over my head and hide.

For some reason I have the odd sensation of all I want to do is cry because something is going away that will never come back. Then I think of daddy and start humming his Guardian Angel song.

I’m supposed to be asleep. Mommy came home but daddy didn’t and no one will tell me where my daddy is. Mommy’s eyes were red when she got home, uncle Rhodey was with her. She wasn’t wearing her pretty armor daddy made her anymore.

I heard Happy tell Rhodey May went to see Peter. Uncle Happy is crying and uncle Rhodey’s eyes are red. I can hear yelling. Uncle Rhodey is telling mommy she has had enough to drink. Like daddy tells me when I’ve had enough water before bedtime.

Happy says a dirty word, hell must be his word like shit is daddy’s. I like to say it, too. Daddy says I shouldn’t but he grins when he does and I like his grins. I like his smiles more. I want to see his smile now but something is telling me no. I’ll never see my daddy smile again.

Peeking out the crack in my door I see mommy downstairs empty a red canister into the toilet of the guest bathroom, uncle Happy is on the floor and Uncle Rhodey is blocking part of my view as mommy flushes the toilet.

Uncle Rhodey is saying something I can’t hear then mommy yells something about “I told him from the start it would kill him!”

I hear mommy yell he should be happy now. Which makes my tummy feel a little better because it makes me happy when my daddy is happy.

I see Happy pull mommy upstairs and go into my parent’s room as she keeps yelling “that bitch” “she had no right” “who the hell does she think she is” over and over before the door shuts. I run and jump back in bed when I hear footsteps coming upstairs and towards my room.

Uncle Rhodey knocks, peeking his head in as he opens my door all the way, “Hey, kiddo, you still up in here?”

“Hi, Uncle Rhodester. My tummy feels funny.”

He smiles a sad smile at me and sits on the side of my bed facing my headboard. “Can you sit up for a minute? I need to talk to you.”

“Okay. Are you going to tell me why mommy is yelling and where my daddy is?” I ask, I’m playing with my feet, stretching out my legs. I already know what he’s going to tell me but I let him anyway. He needs to be the one to.

“I am. It’s about your daddy and a very bad man.”

“Did daddy stop the bad man because he’s a hero?”

“He did, daddy made the bad man go away.”

My chest gets that funny feeling again. I crawl up into his lap. Uncle Rhodey needs the comfort more than I do. “Daddy isn’t coming home anymore, is he?”

I feel Rhodey rub the top of my head with his chin as his arms squeeze me. It hurt a little bit but I’m not going to say anything. I feel something wet on my forehead when he says, “No, baby girl, daddy isn’t coming home.”

I’m eating pancakes when Mommy comes into the kitchen the next morning. Rhodey doesn’t make them as good as daddy. Her eyes are red and she’s in her pajamas. She opens the tall cabinet I can’t get to, moves some boxes around and takes out two bottles of clear liquid.

“It’s a a bit early for that don’t you think? You need to eat.” Happy says from beside me.

“Fuck off, Happy.” Daddy does not like that word AT ALL, mommy walks away then her and daddy’s bedroom door slams.

Rhodey looks at Happy from the stove, “I thought I told you to dump all that. Empty the wine rack?”

Happy just shakes his head. “I emptied the liquor cabinet and wine rack. Didn’t realize I had to search for it.”

I don’t see mommy anymore today. I do see Rhodey later in the afternoon cleaning the fireplace, he’s putting old fire ashes in a red container.

Daddy is talking to us. He made a special message on one of his helmets. Nobody will tell me where he is. It’s been two days since the bad man came and went but nobody will tell me where we are going to bury my daddy. He helped me bury a bird we found one time and we had a funeral for it. I explained to him the decaying process and he told me my brain scares him sometimes. We’re having a funeral for daddy today but we aren’t burying him.

I tried to sneak into daddy’s garage but there’s a padlock on it. I wanted to check on Dum-E. Nobody has and he’s going to be confused, sad and lonely. I can’t get a response or hear F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice in my room when I call for her anymore either.

Uncle Happy said daddy was cremated then started to tell me what that means then I explained the process to him and he gave me a funny look.

Mommy made daddy a wreath with a special arc reactor that she told me he’s had a very, very long time where his ashes are. Uncle Happy and Rhodey looked at each other when mommy told me this but they didn’t say anything. We’re going to put it in the lake but right now daddy is talking to us.

It’s only a hologram but it’s still my daddy’s face and voice. Mommy is squeezing me next to her very tight and I have that funny feeling in my chest again. He leans down right in front of me and says “I love you, 3000.”

Mommy says “Oh, Tony,” as she strokes my long, straight, light brown hair. I can feel her chin on top of my head and something wet dropping on my forehead. “I love you, my little bug.”

She has a sad but loving look on her face. My mommy and daddy love each other very much. People correct me and say loved but I keep telling them love is the only thing that never dies when someone’s body does.

Uncle Rhodey and Happy are crying. So is the guy with the beard and long hair. Steve is standing behind me but he doesn’t say anything. His face looks very serious.

Mommy takes my hand as we walk down the steps from the front porch and up to the dock. Mommy is holding me close real tight again as daddy’s wreath floats away.

I’m sitting on the front porch with Happy on a bench my daddy made. “You hungry?” Happy asks as I watch a pretty lady and tall man speak beside the stairs. A can hear a quiet murmur of “You know what you need to go do” from her and a curt nod from the man.

Mommy is in the cabin “packing a few things” so I’m hanging with Happy but I have that funny feeling in my chest again and feel like I can’t sit still. 

“I am.”

“What would you like to eat?”

“A cheeseburger. I like cheeseburgers.” Me and daddy would go every Thursday night to get one with a milkshake.

“Your daddy liked cheeseburgers, too. I’ll get you all the cheeseburgers you want.” He’s crying again so I lean against him.

The pretty lady with dark black brown curly hair, like daddy’s in his older pictures, wearing a low ponytail and chocolate brown eyes walks up the stairs to us. I saw her standing by Steve earlier. She smiles at Happy. He only nods, face red.

“Hey there, you must be Morgan.” She says as she crouches down in front of me. She’s wearing a sleeveless black dress under a black leather jacket that’s just a little too big for her. It smells familiar but I can’t really place it at the moment. She has my daddy’s eyes so I’m instantly trusting of her.

“Did you know my daddy?”

“I did. I’ve known your Uncle Rhodey and some other of your daddy’s friends for a long time now. Like your Uncle Happy here.”

“Happy is going to get me a cheeseburger.”

“A cheeseburger sounds really great, I really like cheeseburgers.”

“I do, too. So, did my daddy.”

“Is there room for another to say hello to the little one?” The man with light brown hair, white at the temples the pretty lady was speaking to, approaches.

“Did you know my daddy, too?” I ask him.

“I had the pleasure of his company for a short while. I just wanted to let you know some things are going to be different soon.” I watch the pretty lady roll her eyes with a mutter of cryptic asshole under her breath.

“You know Morgan, everything is going to be okay.” The nice lady lays her hand against my cheek, I see a bit of gold with blue glowing gems peek out from the sleeve of her jacket “Your Uncle Happy is going to make real good sure of it along with a very extended family.” She finishes as she lays her other hand against Happy’s cheek, smiling up into his face.

I hear Happy start to mumble “Mor…?” before the front door slams open and bags are thrown on the porch.

The pretty lady stands up and says “Pepper…...” The tall man steps back.

I can’t hear anymore as Happy covers my ear and pulls my head into his side, covering the other. I did hear the name Ginny. 

I see my mommy slap the lady across the face, though.

Mommy grabs me by my wrist, yanking me off the bench and I stumble down the steps trying to keep up with her.

I hear the man ask if the pretty lady was she sure with her reply of “Time has a way, Strange. You know what needs to be done. You saw it. Now go do it.”

I hear Happy yell at my mommy, “Stop it dammit, Pepper.”

We are at the car, getting in the back seat. My wrist hurts when mommy lets it go so I rub it.

I can see Happy put the bags in the trunk then get in the front seat. He turns around and looks at my mommy. “Don’t ever do that again” he says harshly to her. He turns around starting the engine.

“Just take us to the airport.” She says coldly, looking out the window.

“But what about my cheeseburger? Where are we going?” I ask.

“We’re going to the airport, to California and put your seatbelt on. How many times do I have to tell you?” She says, yanking the belt around me. The edge of the belt slaps my face, it hurts but I remain quiet. Mommy is scaring me a bit right now.

Happy looks into the rear view mirror, meeting mommy’s eyes. “Cheeseburger, then airport.”

“But what about Dum-E?” I ask, turning around in my seat, looking out the back window past the people still on our lawn towards the garage but no one answers me.

We arrive in California late that night.

I’m very sleepy, that funny feeling in my chest is getting worse and I haven’t been able to nap because of it. Mommy is kind of short tempered so I’m trying to be on my best girl behavior. We arrive at what mommy calls our new home, a condo on the beach in Santa Barbara around midnight. I ask about our cabin but mommy ignores me.

There is already a bed set up and made for me. Mommy helps me change my clothes and tells me to go to sleep.

My chest is hurting worse now and I want to throw up but Mommy and Happy are arguing.

I finally fall asleep around four a.m. to the sound of a pop and Happy asking mommy if she thought that was a good idea right now and if she took her meds.

After I fall asleep I dream of my daddy’s voice “You have such a bright future ahead of you, My Morguna. Some things are going to be different. Don’t be afraid, embrace it,” and a rainbow of pretty stones coming out of a gray case surrounding and circling around me while I float out amongst the stars in space.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What true powers do the stones hold?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for graphic violence against a child and OOC AU

When I wake up in the morning I have to crawl down on my stomach out of the bed, going in search of my mother. She’s sitting in a white lattice wood chair that matches the glass covered table eating fruit and drinking orange juice with her sunglasses on out on the patio that looks out towards the ocean of the Santa Monica shoreline. Uncle Happy picks me up from behind and blows a raspberry on my tummy asking me “do you want pancakes?”

I say “yes, please” as he places me in a chair across from my mother. I reach for her orange juice with chubby hands but Happy grabs it saying “I have your very own O.J. right here for my little Antonia.”

I swing my feet back and forth as I eat my silver dollar pancakes. I start reading the front of the newspaper my mother is holding “Mexican Military Forces Are Surging.” She stands up, throwing the paper down muttering “why does she have to be so much like him?”

“Uncle Happy, what’s wrong with being like my daddy?” I ask him as tears well in my eyes.

“Not a thing.” He says as he rubs my short, curly, light brown hair. “It doesn’t surprise me the slightest that Tony Stark has a genius for a daughter. You carry his name, after all.”

Later that day we visit a pre-school but mother is mad. The head master wants me to go to a gifted school instead. That they couldn’t possibly challenge an intelligent child like me, especially one that is already testing at a second grade level at three years old. They even give her pamphlets to nearby schools.

“Do you have any pamphlets on out of town academies?” My mother asks. Happy gives her a look of pure rage when I start crying begging her not to send me away as we get in the car with her reply of “You need to stop crying so much.”

The next day I hear my mother on the phone “I don’t care how they do it I want it torn down.”

Later that day while I’m playing and Uncle Happy is watching the news with his lips pressed tight together I hear something called OsCorp has bought Stark Industries and will be demolishing Stark Tower in New York to rebuild their own new vision of the future of the city skyline.

I am in my room listening as Happy and mother argue.

He’s saying “You shouldn’t have flushed your meds.”

She’s yelling at him “He shouldn’t have left me with nothing. Mind your own fucking business.”

“Antonia’s well being is my business and he did leave you with something, his most prized possession, her.”

It’s nice being able to hear the ocean as I skip along the beach looking for seashells but Dum-E isn’t here and exploring isn’t the same, so I mostly just stay in my room out of the way. The contents of my backpack spread out in front of me as I tinker with the see through phone, spending my days rebuilding it’s circuits so it can be a holographic computer again.

I hope someone is looking in on Dum-E. It’s been a month since daddy went away.

My chest hasn’t had that funny feeling since I dreamed about the rainbow of stones and floating in space but I get weird memories sometimes. Like being out in a tent and daddy saying Morgan H. Stark it’s time for lunch, him calling someone Morguna and hiding on a set of stairs watching daddy at his computer at the cabin when it’s only one story.

Mother settled on a private school for the gifted fifteen miles away from here. It has a dormitory but Happy said he would drive me. I start Monday. Happy told me not to worry, I’ll meet plenty of kids to play with.

I’m splashing in the bathtub, pretending I’m a mermaid. My hair shampooed and body washed long ago when the door bangs open against the wall.

“Antonia Maria Potts-Stark why aren’t you out of the bath yet? It doesn’t take that long to take a bath.” Mother is walking a little wobbly as she yanks me up by my wrist then picks me up under my arms, standing me on the rug by the tub and wraps a towel around me.

She roughly dries me off, pulling a night shirt over my head then starts on my hair. Toweling it into a nest of tangled curls. She plops me on the side of the sink in front of the mirror as she starts brushing it.

I let out an “Ouch, mother.” She swats my arm with the brush. “Hold still. Your hair is a rat’s nest. These damn curls always tangle up. That’s it. I’m tired of them.”

I watch her as she opens the counter drawer searching for something. I hear her mutter under her breath “Where are all the fucking scissors.” Then a “Screw it. This is even better.”

I watch her as she takes out Uncle Happy’s shaving kit, removing his razor with a long blade and wooden handle that folds.

She unfolds the blade and takes a hunk of my hair in her hands, sawing at my curls.

“Mother, no!” I start crying. Daddy loved my curls. I watch as chunk after chunk of hair falls into the sink.

“Stop crying. You’re not the one that has to take care of this shit.”

I hear a “I’m home. Where is everyone?”

Happy walks in as mother chops at my hair, looking at my tear stained face. He sees the tub of water.

“Pepper are you…..did she take a bath by herself?”

“She needs to learn how to do things on her own.”

Happy grabs mother’s wrist, taking the razor out of her hand by the handle, folding it back together. Dragging her out of the room as I sit on the counter looking at my curls in the sink then in the mirror at the short strands sticking out everywhere.

Happy comes back. Giving me a smile as he rests his chin in my head. “How about we get you dressed. Get a cheeseburger and milkshake. Maybe visit someone to make that hair of yours even more gorgeous.”

I hide my head in Happy’s shoulder. “Daddy loved my curls.”

“I know baby girl.”

Uncle Happy takes me to a hair salon where a nice lady looks at him, then me, after I promise to sit still and she looks at the condition my hair is in. “How about I make you into a magic fairy? Want to be a brunette Tinkerbell?” She asks me with a smile.

I grin, shaking my head yes. Being a fairy wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Fairies can fly away.

I hear a knock on the front door and Happy yell in excitement. Next comes Uncle Rhodey’s voice. I go running out of my room and jump into his arms as he hugs me tight. I see him look at Happy when he goes to rub his hand on my head noticing the short cut. I hear him saying something very quietly about hiding all the scissors but Happy just shakes his head. “I went to the fucking store.”

“You left them alone?”

“I hid all the scissors, she still found a way. Left her alone in the bathtub to go get a drink. She was sober when I left. Came home and she was buzzed.”

A “Can we join the party?” Comes from the door. It’s the man Rhodey calls Sam when he says hello and the man with him wearing a nylon jacket with gloves and a buzzcut is James.

My mother mutters “ great” as she gets up from the couch.

“I see you got a haircut.” The man James says slowly, as if me getting a haircut was a sign of war.

“My curls were infuriating.”

“Really, did you get into the scissors?” James asks, Rhodey is eyeing me carefully.

“No, mother couldn’t find them so she used Uncle Happy’s straight razor from his shaving kit but it was all choppy so he took me to this nice lady that made me look like a brunette Tinkerbell.” I see Rhodey look over at mother with a grim look on his face.

“You got a haircut too. It was long at daddy’s funeral.”

“I did. That’s a mighty ugly looking bruise.” He says rubbing his fingers against my arm and then wrist. I notice him looking at my face. I giggle with a “is it dirty?”

“No, I like to admire beauty.” He smiles at me but I miss the quiet and “make sure you don’t have any cuts.”

“I need to learn to sit still.”

I hear Sam mutter “Well we’ve got one strike against us on the protect Antonia front.”

No sooner than the door is about to close a fury arm opens it.

I’m staring down at the talking raccoon that is the same size as me and a tree that keeps saying I am Groot that were at daddy’s funeral. At lot of people here were at daddy’s funeral but did not speak.

A pretty blue lady introduces herself to me. Her name is Nebula and she tells me how fond of my father she is. She looks at Rhodey as she runs her fingers over my hair.

Is, she gets it like I do.

“You’re very pretty,” I tell her. She hesitates, then gives me a hug. “My daddy’s red suit used to have the same arm.” I giggle, she smiles back at me. “You’re very pretty, too.” She tells me.

A man named Peter is next, but not Aunt May’s Peter. Behind him stands a multicolored man and another pretty lady with black eyes, hair and antennas on her head.

Aunt May and her Peter enter through the open door. Peter is shy around me and quiet. I ask how I’m supposed to tell which Peter I’m talking to when he smirks and says “You can call me Parker” along with a girl named Shuri that sends her greetings and tells me T’Challa regrets he could not be here in person but his kingdom is still putting the pieces back together.

I stare at her in awe. My daddy knows a King. I knew my daddy is the coolest.

Peter shows me some packages saying “We heard a certain little humanoid named Antonia Maria Potts-Stark is starting school on Monday. You wouldn’t happen to know who that is do you?”

“That’s me!” I giggle with a smile, raising my arms

“We just wanted you to have something a little bit special to commensurate the occasion.” Peter 

says softly.

Rhodey puts me down, telling me “It’s okay to open them” then I near Happy proclaiming “It’s time to fire up the grill.”

My mother is standing with her arms crossed in the doorway leading to the hall watching us. Her lips in a thin line. Everyone says hello to her and gives a polite nod in greeting but she doesn’t respond to them. I grab the one named Peter by the hand when the long haired man from when I talked to daddy every night enters.

The entryway is overflowing so people start to file into the living room. I let go of Peter’s hand and walk over to the large man. I look up at him, pulling on the leg of his pants, until he picks me up.

I wrap my arms around his neck and lay my head on his shoulder. I get a “What is this for, my dear little lady?”

I respond to him with “You never said hello and you always look sad and like you need a hug and I wasn’t able to give you one when we said good-bye to daddy.”

He looks at me with tear filled eyes, pronouncing “I am Thor, Norse God of Thunder.”

“Is it okay if I just call you Uncle Thor?” I ask him.

He carries me over to the couch where Peter and the raccoon, “The name is Rocket” he says, are beside where they have put my packages.

“I know, you were there with daddy and I saw you at his funeral. You didn’t say hi though. None of you did.”

The room grows quiet. “It’s okay.” I say. “People are quiet sometimes when they hurt. Sometimes grief doesn’t know where to go. Sometimes it comes out in tears and sometimes it just doesn’t come out at all because it doesn’t know where to go or what to do so it just stays quiet until one day, it knows.”

I hear James mutter to Sam. “She’s, uh, um….”

“A miniature version of her? Yup.”

“Steve would have…..” But James doesn’t finish that sentence. I see Sam squeeze his shoulder with a “He would.”

“He’s an idiot.” James says bluntly.

Sam just shakes his head. “His choice. Besides, we aren’t sure.”

“You heard Banner.”

“And you know our brother just as well as I do. Just saying, don’t remember an extra shield laying about and he wasn’t open about that wedding band. Just make sure you keep that fifty bucks handy.”

“He said it himself, he couldn’t go forward using the particles.”

“If I remember correctly it’s was you that laughed at him and said since when did that stop him. I was thinking. So, California isn’t such a bad place.”

“I think a change of scenery will do us some good.” James replies.

The rest I can’t hear as Rocket distracts me.

They sit around me as I start opening them. A few are everyday school items, folders, pens, pencils, a hi-tech calculator. Then I get to the bigger packages. The one from Rhodey are books on Quantum Physics and Engineering. Sam and James pitched in and got me circuit wires and a lot of other odds and ends that they explained I would know what to do with. Parker, gave me a hug with red rimmed eyes and a flat circle that barely fit in the palm of my hand.

“If you ever need me, hit the button right in the middle and I’ll be here just as fast as I can.” He says to me.

Peter, Sam, James and Rhodey all ask if they can get one too. Parker jokes that “I doubt you guys need a friendly neighborhood anything.”

Rhodey smacks him on the back of the head, “In case she needs us.”

“Yours are in the car with everyone else’s.” Then they start talking about a Green Man on a flying skateboard.

I can hear Aunt May trying to talk to my mother but she just remains silent.

Up next is a group gift from Peter, Nebula and their “crew.” Peter tells me as I’m opening it “Rocket and Nebula said your dad told them you like to tinker, we figured you would like it being a Guinea Pig and all but it was Rocket that put it together.”

It’s an engineering kit.

I hear my mother mutter “If she blows up my condo she’s going to live with you on your spaceship.”

I look at Peter with wide eyes, “You really have a space ship?” I ask him excitedly.

Rocket pipes up from where he is lying on the arm of the couch, hands behind his head, feet crossed “Peter has a spaceship, but I fly it.” He waves his hand between Peter and Thor.”Those two argue about where we go. It’s a thing.”

“May I see it?” I ask Peter and Rocket. They pause, as if thinking about something. Both sharing a glance with Nebula.

“One day, kiddo.” Is Peter’s reply.

The last is a gift from Shuri, “T’Challa welcomes you with open arms any time you wish to visit, you are now and forever will be under the protection of Wakanda and her king.” She tells me then hands me a small, square package. When I open it a light glows from inside.

“Wakanda is the most technologically advanced country in the world. When you are older and wish to come study I will be more than happy to teach you what I know.”

Inside the box are two stones, made from the arc reactor my daddy was wearing when he died.

Steve isn’t here and no one says why or talks about Nat, Bruce or Clint. Someone named Strange has disappeared. I remember him from the funeral. No one says anything about the pretty lady either.

I will not be scared or worried about starting school Monday or care if I even meet any friends.

Uncle Rhodey transfers here to work out of base in Santa Monica.

James and Sam move into a house a few miles away. They even ride along with Happy on my first day of school.

Looking around I see the people that will come visit me once, sometimes twice a month. Some even more. I see the sister of a King that will let me come to his kingdom and call me his Little Antonia with a hug as he picks me up off the ground the first time I visit a few months from my impromptu starting school party with Happy’s blessing, almost insistence.

They will be there a little after a year from when daddy was taken from us while Happy and my mother get married. Parker will come sit by me as I cry because I miss my daddy and listen as my mother says “Why do you always have to ruin everything by crying like a baby?”

He tells me as he pulls me against his side with one arm around me. “It’s okay to cry, even when people tell you it’s not. Tears are just grief that have nowhere to go. I heard that from a very smart girl about a year ago.”

Six months later I’ll shed tears again but this time for T’Challa and Shuri as they bury their mother next to their father.

I’ll have weird dreams for years about a man named Beck and my daddy calling someone Morguna while we run around a two story cabin I have never seen but seems familiar.

Lila Barton and Cassie Lang reach out to me and I will grow attached to them over the years without me knowing their fathers. Lila tells me one day after we first get in touch that I have never met Natasha because she went on vacation to Budapest after the bad man came, met a wonderful man and started a family.

They will be in awe of the things I build with the gifts they have given me. They will continue to come visit their usual times like clockwork, even as I get older and eventually move into the school dormitory when I’m seven because mother likes to go visit Nat in Budapest so much.

On my fifth birthday Peter and the Guardians crew show up. Peter with a grin on his face as he blindfolds me. When he takes it off I’m standing in an actual spaceship with amazement written all over my face. I’m just standing there when Peter says “Whatcha waiting for. Go do your exploring thing.”

I’m promptly kicked off and banned from said ship one hour later by a yelling Rocket as he screams “Boundaries, Peter. I told you to set boundaries!” After he catches me reprogramming the navigational computer with different thrust and gps protocols.

Nebula holds me while I cry as I say “I’m sorry, I was just trying to help. I’m sorry I am who I am.” Rocket suddenly softens and with a pat on my knee says “I know, kid. I know. It’s just you remind me of an old friend I miss dearly. I’m sorry I yelled.”

I can hear Mantis hiss at him “She frightens.” I near a hissed “Pepper.”

I look at Rocket. “I thought we were friends.”

Peter just looks at him as he wipes his face. “More than you will ever know, kid.” He says as he wraps his tiny arms around me.

On my sixth birthday they appear again and Peter once again blindfolds me. I feel myself being lifted and put in a chair. When the blindfold comes off Peter asks me “Ready to learn how to fly this thing?”

“I thought I was banned.” Rocket has his head down grumbling to himself something I can’t understand.

“This is actually Rocket’s idea. He was impressed with the new thrust capacity and higher quality gps system but he’ll never admit it.”

“I suck at being nice.” He blurts out.

I tilt my head at him. “Maybe you just need to let people be nice to you.”

He just looks at me like I’m someone he knew once. “You know. Another smart person told me that once, too.”

“I am Groot.” I look over at the tall tree and ask him if he will teach me his language. I get a large smile in return with a “I am Groot.”

“Of course we’ll help her big guy. So, let’s get this show on the road. Safety first. Seatbelt.” Peter exclaims, then proceeds to tell me how to correctly fly a space craft. He doesn’t take I to account my speedy thinking and quick learning and in ten minutes we’re off the ground. “Rocket behind us saying “I told you. Don’t underestimate her. What did you go do? Let’s fly doll.”

The next day Uncle Rhodey will hold a press conference saying the aircraft seen flying over Santa Monica the day before was not an UFO but part of a training exercise being conducted by the Air Force. There is no need to fear another invasion.

Thor will start introducing himself as the Norse God of Thunder, Uncle to the Lady Antonia.

Peter will start calling me Ginny as I keep up with my experiments.

Parker will teach me hand to hand combat when he visits, as will Nebula along with how to properly use and throw a knife.

Sam and Bucky will teach me the art of friendship as well as the art of marksmanship and how to defend myself.

On my later visits to Wakanda Okeye teaches me the true art of being a warrior, along with mercy and a King teaches me the art of leadership. Telling me “Sometimes it doesn’t seem right or you may think the person is betraying you when they are not but at times it is best to keep your friends close yet your enemies closer. A friend taught me that.”

“Is it because your enemy acts like your friend and doing the right thing but they’re really hiding something to distract you from the bad thing they are doing?”

T’Challa looks at me with one of those looks I get from many of the others. “Yes , my little Antonia. That is it exactly.”

I will call and talk to Shuri on occasions with the clear mini computer phone from my backpack that I fixed.

Sometimes she will even call me for help on something that is holding up one of her projects.

They will come see me each holiday and every January ninth for my birthday along with their regular visits. Sometimes one of them will just pop up for a cheeseburger and milkshake.

Then one day, on my ninth birthday, after everyone is gone and I am alone in my room I will use the engineering kit that Rocket put together for me, two gold bracelets that I have embedded a blue stone Shuri gave me almost six years ago into each of them, along with two small circular discs and create an AI using an algorithm to mimic my daddy’s voice.

“Hi.” I say aloud.

Then I hear the most glorious thing. My daddy’s voice. “Hey there, Antonia.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I hope we get to know each other real well. I know you’re not my daddy but you sound like him. Makes me feel like he’s with me.”

“Antonia, your father is always with you. You’re his Petunia. His baby girl. His greatest creation. Now, what’s my name ?”

“You’re name?”

“A.I. 101. Gotta have a name.”

I get a sudden smile as a memory comes to mind. It’s perfect. I name him 3000.

I will never tell my mother or Happy about it but Parker figures the bracelets out and smirks with “a yeah, you’re Tony Stark’s kid.”

He talks to my AI for a bit one visit and gets a bit teary eyed. When he tells me why “it’s because you made it so much like him.”

With my 275 IQ and eidetic memory I breeze through class after class, unchallenged, until late, right before Christmas, of December 2029 before my tenth birthday when my family gathers in the small auditorium.

T’Challa will be there telling me that this is an event that even a king must attend. Everyone will attend. Shuri, Parker, Peter, Rocket, the whole Guardians crew along with a woman named Gamora that Nebula stays very close to, Lila and Cassie come but I have yet to meet their fathers.

“Don’t take it personally. What happened with your dad just…” Rhodey tries to explain.

“Traumatized them.” I answer for him and for a moment he gives me that look like I remind him of someone else.

Sam, James and of course Thor, Rhodey and Happy will be there. Everyone will cheer as I am handed my diploma.

My mother hugs me close to her, kissing my cheek, calling me her smart little bug.

It is also the day Happy will present me with adoption papers.

I’m quiet after he hands them to me. “What are you thinking about baby girl?”

“You know I love you, Right Uncle Happy?”

“Of course”

“It’s just. Well. I don’t want to hurt your feelings or seem ungrateful for everything that you do for me.”

“Antonia, you can never hurt my feelings. Talk to me.”

I’m looking down at the floor when I ask, “Does this mean I have to call you dad?”

“I expect to be nothing more than your Uncle Happy, that is all I ever will want to be and it’s okay with me, actually I insist, that you keep the name Stark. I never expect you to be anyone but Tony Stark’s little girl. The adoption is just a back up plan. Your father was big on backup plans. He got that from a friend.”

“Really? Who?”

He gets a far off look on his face. “Someone we knew a long time that was very special but she left after your daddy’s funeral. I think there was somewhere she needed to be.”

“To help people, like daddy did?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

The following January before my tenth birthday, my family will help me move to Boston to attend M.I.T., Happy will encourage me to double major in quantum physics and engineering. To pick up extra classes to challenge myself, which will make me spend Spring Break at school doing course work.

Parker will visit Boston more often, having moved back to New York with MJ after finishing his own degree and T’Challa will send two of his guards to watch over “his little Antonia,” as my guardians while I attend classes.

If Sam and Bucky suddenly decide they need some East coast exposure they assure me it has nothing to do with me.

I will end up attending Summer classes, with Happy’s encouragement. Since graduating high school I slowly will barely speak to my mother. When I do it will be short and clipped.

I grow my hair out over the years. Not letting anyone near it with a pair of scissors, except when I trim the ends myself. It grows back a darker black brown that looks like daddy’s when he was younger way before I was born. My curls come back, softer and not as spirally.

Rhodey, who suddenly gets transferred to Virginia, will tell me it looks more Audrey Hepburn and less Shirley Temple. I have no clue what he’s talking about so I just go with it.

It’s the day before Thanksgiving of 2030, I’m in the kitchen with my mother as she cooks, on a rare visit home. Like always, I left my bracelets behind.

Uncle Sam and James took me camping over the weekend, getting back last night up in the California mountains when I first got here. Their excuse being they wanted some Antonia time.

Because it’s not like we don’t live in the same city and get Cheeseburgers and Milkshakes every Thursday.

They didn’t freak out as I asked them if we could stay and watch when they thought we should leave or when I told them the natural birthing process when we see a black bear and two cubs playing in the water. They just sit there and listen to me like they have over the years. Every once in awhile I see a smirk on one of their faces and hear a quiet “some things never change.”

I haven’t been here since starting M.I.T. and I’m tinkering with another toaster, sitting at the kitchen table.

This one Happy found at an old thrift store. Happy and Parker, here for the day before returning home to MJ and his Aunt, have gone out to look for cranberries. I want to remind mother we had a cranberry bush at the cabin but we haven’t talked about our home since moving to California. I’m about to begin my third year learning criteria at M.I.T after Christmas break but we don’t talk about that either.

The toaster beeps and I let out a little squeal of delight as it says “Hello, Antonia” and what used to be a heating element is now an arm that is waving at me. I look up and see my mother standing there, holding the candy thermometer, face white as a sheet with eyes a blaze of anger and haunted.

I let out a yelp as she drags me from the chair I’m sitting in by my forearm. She throws me on the floor. I land on my hands and knees as she picks up my newest creation and throws it at me. It bounces off my back and onto the floor.

I start crying as I watch it laying there broken into fragments, not even feeling the pain in my back as my heart shatters. She starts hitting me with the thermometer on my back. It burns where it was in the hot sugary liquid and the metal head starts to leave bloody whelps. I cover my head with my arms as she screams at me “why are you like him” as the glass on the thermometer breaks and embeds itself into the skin on my upper back.

I hear Happy and Parker come through the front door and I scream, Happy screaming at my mother, “What the fuck are you doing?” Just as she throws the hot sugary concoction in the small pot on my back.

Parker tries to grab me but I run to my room, closing and locking the door. I grab the small disc Parker gave me seven years before and hit the middle button then curl up against the door on the floor and cry.

Someone will come. Anyone. They promised me when I need them they would come.

I can hear Happy and my mother yelling at each other as Parker tries to get me to open the door, asking me about my bracelets, but all I can hear is her saying over and over again “why does she have to be like him, she’s my curse.”

I not sure how long it’s been before I hear Rocket first, after splintering of wood, yelling “where is she?” I hear quiet murmurs. Parker telling Peter what happened, that Happy has taken my mother to go see Nat.

I hear Nebula knock on my door with a quiet spoken “Antonia?”

I ignore the pain that has been radiating through me, get up and open it to see her and Gamora standing there. They take in my red rimmed eyes. Nebula leans in to give me a hug but stills as I let out a hiss when her hands touch my back.

I hear an actual growl come from her as Gamora whispers “oh, baby” when she turns me around.

Peter, Rocket and Parker are standing in my doorway red faced.

I watch as Rocket goes into the bathroom, climbing up onto the sink and gathers gauze, tweezers, a pair of scissors and other supplies from the medicine cabinet. He returns, shoving them at Nebula “take care of her.”

Gamora guides me to sit on my bed as Rocket ushers Peter and Parker out of my room. Parker goes to close my door but Rocket stops him with a terse “it stays open.”

Gamora is cutting my blouse from my bloody, burnt, back when I wince.

Rocket returns with a wet cloth. “She needs a hospital.”

“No, please. Don’t make me leave.” I beg.

Peter and Parker refuge to budge away from the outside of my door, backs turned to give me privacy. Nebula holds my hand, not saying anything if I might squeeze a bit too hard. Nebula is also helping Gamora, using the wet cloth to loosen the dried blood stained shirt from my back as Gamora keeps cutting away at the burned fabric. They get it off finally, handing me a towel to cover my chest. I hear Nebula mutter something about parents and monsters as she takes in the burns and deep whelps. It hurts and I try not to cry but every once in awhile a whimper escapes me as Gamora uses the tweezers to remove the glass.

Nebula cups my cheek telling me it’s okay to cry. I lean against her as another wet cloth is placed on my back as the tears start to fall. Groot enters my room, leaning down, taking the place of Gamora with an “I am Groot.”

He places his hand over my back as the leaves on it grow like vines over me. The pain subsides and the wounds close. He gives me a short peck on my forehead and exits. Nebula helps me change into a clean night shirt after taking off my bloody shorts. She checks me over for more injuries, seeing superficial scrapes on my hands and knees, a bruise forming on my arm. Her and Gamora tuck me into bed, both kissing me goodnight and telling me they love me.

Rocket watches me for a few minutes before turning to leave. I let out a small “don’t leave me alone.”

He grabs one of my stuffed animals off my dresser. “Don’t worry, kid you won’t be alone. No one is leaving you tonight.” He tells me.

I turn my back on him, not touching the unicorn and cry myself to sleep.

The next morning I wake up with Rocket against my back, asleep, with his tiny arms around me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a Maiden of Iron is born.

I’m laying in my bed listening to the soft snoring of Rocket as I wonder why my mother thinks of me as a curse. Am I too smart? Should I drop out of school? Should I play dumb? Why can’t my mother just love me for me? I remember her telling me she loves me before going to meet daddy. She wouldn’t lie to me. Would she? Do people lie to you when they tell you they love you just to say it because that’s what people do? Want to hear?

I don’t know how to be anyone else but me.

Feeling me move Rocket wakes as well, saying a soft “Good morning, kiddo.” I smell pancakes and hear quiet voices as I find my way to the kitchen where Peter, Parker and Sam are leaning against the counter, arms crossed. Happy is standing in front of the kitchen table as Nebula and Gamora cook breakfast. Groot is outside on the patio meditating in the morning sun, most likely recharging after healing my back.

Nebula greets me with a warm smile and takes me back into my bedroom as I hear a booming voice say, “I don’t care where she is or what kind of help she is getting. She touches the child again, I will kill her with lightening myself.”

“Is that really the wisest of comments to make, Norse God Thor, considering how her father was taken from her?” I hear T’Challa calmly ask. “I would take her to Wakanda but the way Shuri speaks of her, our little Antonia is enjoying what she is learning and thriving where she is. I should not have relieved my guards of their duty while she is here.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t know her mother would go bat shit crazy and beat her kid, your highness.” James quietly adds.

“That’s strike two on the taking care of Antonia front. Steve would kick our asses. We shouldn’t have left her either.” Sam quietly adds.

I can’t hear the rest of them as Nebula closes my door.

They came. They all came. 

For me.

“Groot healed your wounds but unfortunately you will still have some pretty bad scars.” Nebula explains to me after I’m dressed and she brushes my hair.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Not all scars you can see.”

“I understand that.” She murmurs to me.

We return to the kitchen and Thor crushes me in a hug that might last a little bit longer than any other hug he has given me before.

T’Challa offers a greeting in the way of a hug as well telling me “I am to try an American delicacy called pancakes this morning. Happy Day of Giving Thanks.”

I sit down in front of a plate of pancakes eating them when Rocket plops the fragments of my bot down next to it when I’m done.

I look down at my lap.

“Why are you crying?” He asks me, sitting my engineering kit down on the table, taking the plate and giving it to Nebula. “As someone once told me. You’re a mechanic. Be a mechanic and fix it. What’s its name?”

“What?” I sniffle, asking him.

“It’s name. Every “thing” has to have a name.” He does air quotes with his fingers when he says thing.

I think of Dum-E back home and the time I tried to make him a friend.

“Totes. HER name, is Totes. And it’s not a thing. You shouldn’t call things that matter things. You’re not a thing and somebody made you. You’re Rocket and that means you matter.”

“Well then. It looks like Totes needs a little patching up.” If he has a lump in his throat when he says it nobody comments on it.

I look at the mangled mess on the table then start going through my kit. Arranging pieces in piles and sorting through wires. Parker quietly asks me about the bracelets once again. “I left them behind at my dorm so mother wouldn’t see them.” He nods in relief and understanding. Little did I know he was afraid what she would do to me if she found them.

Rocket promptly sits down next to me and maybe for the rest of the day stays closer to me than he normally does. Then when Totes comes back online with a beep, waving her heating element arm at me once again with a “Hello, Antonia” nobody mentions the tears in his eyes either as they all clap.

I could hear Peter mutter to Happy in the living room “She beat the shit out of her because she made a robot?”

“She reminds Pepper too much of Tony.” Happy tries to say quietly.

“And that’s her fault?” Peter hisses.

“No, that’s Pepper’s problem, among other things. She can’t come back here Peter.” Happy was murmuring so I couldn’t hear but I could anyway. Nebula chimes in with a “Never again.”

It’s the last Holiday or time I ever go back to California or the condo to visit.

Rhodey takes me out for a Cheeseburger and a milkshake later that day for Thanksgiving and each Thanksgiving following for the next few years.

When I return back to my dorm after I introduce 3000 to Totes I put my bracelets on, putting them safely away in a pocket or another piece of clothing when others are around; just to always have them with me. Telling 3000 we can only talk when we are alone. He follows that command. Then silently listens with no witty or sarcastic remarks as I tell him about my visit and my back. He never mentions it but that night I swear I hear a familiar lullaby when I’m half asleep that makes me dream of daddy.

T’Challa has his guards take me to Wakanda on Christmas break. When Okeye is not training me, Shuri and I hold up in her lab. T’Challa takes me on a picnic everyday, except for Christmas Day. Where I learn the tradition of a Wakanda Christmas and T’Challa trains me himself. This too will become a yearly tradition over the next few years.

In March of 2031 when Spring Break week approaches Rocket shows up at M.I.T., leaning up against the open door jam to my room. “Hey, kiddo. Pack a bag. It’s a surprise. “ he says before I can ask.

I pick up Totes and follow Rocket to the Guardians spaceship.

I go to buckle into a passenger seat when he asks me “What’re you doing?”

Rocket takes the seat instead, tucking Totes next to him as Peter guides me to the front of the ship. He plops me down in the Captains chair and asks me, “Where you want to go, kiddo?”

It becomes a tradition until I graduate. I spend my Summers taking extra courses with Totes there to keep me company.

Happy calls or FaceTimes me almost everyday, even visits once a month. Mother doesn’t come with him or to the phone.

In May of 2033, Parker asks me to be his best person at his wedding to MJ at the ribbon cutting ceremony of his and Harley Keener’s first P&K Industries office. It’s a small space that used to be a restaurant that he totally remodeled but you have to start somewhere. I proudly stand beside him as MJ walks down the aisle that August.

2034 goes the same, school and study, until on Tuesday November seventh of that year the game changes while Rhodey is paying me a visit, Thunderbolt Ross is elected President of the United States; looking like he’d seen a fortune tellers reading come true.

Just like my high school graduation my family gathers late in December of 2034 before Christmas to watch me graduate with honors with two PhDs; one in Quantum Physics, the other in Engineering.

My mother is visiting Natasha in Budapest this time.

It doesn’t matter because I have half an auditorium giving me a standing ovation. Plus, it isn’t everyday a King stands and cheers, pumping his fist as he whoops.

Little did I know I just had my last Cheeseburger Thanksgiving with Rhodey and spent my last Christmas in Wakanda.

On January 1st 2035 Happy is helping me move into a cabin by a lake in Upstate New York so I can get settled in before my Psychology classes at Columbia University start online. After eleven and a half years, I come home to our one story cabin by the lake with our tire swing and little rowboat. I can hear the faint echoes of laughter as daddy throws me off the dock into the water.

Mom is still visiting Natasha in Budapest.

“So, no lecture about how I’m too young to be doing this?” I ask him.

I look at my uncle, the gray hair and lines on his face showing his sixty-five years but still the one that has been there from my birth. My father was getting gray hair when he died. I wonder what he’d look like today. Who’d he be today.

Happy stops, a box in his arms, turns around and looks at me. “Antonia, you’re about to turn fifteen going on thirty. You’ve been through more crap in those fifteen years than anyone I know, besides your father. You’re mature enough for people to mistake you to be in your twenties. You’re responsible. I may be your guardian” He holds up his hand when I open my mouth. “Adoption papers aside.”

“You don’t need me to take care of you. You’ve been doing that since before you were ten. Besides, you’ve been to space and can fly a space ship. I’d say you’re good.”

I take the box from him, putting it down on the porch bench, and wrap my arms around him. “Uncle Happy, I will always need you. Besides who would get my cheeseburgers for me?” He laughs and picks the box back up.

After the Uhaul is empty I invite him inside to sit and look around. He declines saying “I have enough memories here.”

After we hug he pulls back and cups my cheeks. “Antonia, do you remember at your dad’s funeral his friend that said she knew him and the rest of us?”

“I do. We never saw her again. She cupped my cheek and told me every way going to be okay.”

“She was right you know. There may be times you may not think it or feel it but everything is going to turn out just the way it’s meant to be. You’re going to do amazing things. Things you think you can’t handle or get through but you Antonia Maria Potts-Stark the Universe gifted to Tony and the rest of us for a reason. Always remember that.” He kisses my cheek and we bid or farewells, me waving as he drives away.

For some reason I have the overwhelming feeling he’s right and that life as I know it will never be the same.

The cabin has not been touched. It’s covered in dust but every little thing is in the same place as the day we left. Every picture, from baby photos to mother and daddy’s wedding day. A few scattered pictures of people I have and have not met. A laughing red head that I talked to while daddy was away, Natasha. A picture of dad and Steve, arms around their shoulders on his wedding day and a few others of them. Daddy, Happy and mother. Daddy and Parker. The only pictures from here at the cabin, other than my parent’s wedding photos, are of me and a few of me and daddy. None of mother.

The first thing I do is laser off the padlock on daddy’s garage.

It’s completely trashed. Mother’s rescue armor is a pile of scraps on the floor. I call out for F.R.I.D.A.Y. but get no answer. The wiring is fried and torn out.

“Somebody was majorly pissed.”

“You’re the future Psychology student.”

“Extreme aggression turning into a manic state.”

It’s the first thing I fix but F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s programming has been destroyed beyond repair. She’s gone. I collaborate 3000 to the house and garage turning around when I hear a whirring sound. I feel rubbing against my side and look down, smiling I tell Dum-E “I’m home” and introduce him to the little bot at my feet, Totes.

They hit it off right away. I also build a ramp up to the house so Dum-E and Totes can come inside.

I’m in my old room unpacking, I stop and look at myself in the closet door mirror. Five feet even, short, my hair of curls going all the way down my back. Flat chested. I’ve never cared about my looks. Still don’t. I care more about what I can fit into my brain. From Rhodey and old pictures I look a lot like daddy when he was my age. Just softer, a little rounder, is how Rhodey put it. I don’t see it though. I see a short stick figure. Whatever.

I’m putting a box on my bed labeled “dresser” as my cell phone falls to the floor. Getting down on my hands and knees I find it under the side of my bed. I also find an old cherry wood box. Pulling it out I wipe the dust off it to reveal writing carved into the wood.

Morgan H. Stark 2019

“Who the hell is Morgan H. Stark?” I say out loud. 3000’s voice answers throughout the house with a “status unknown.”

I place the box on my bed, did I have a sibling? Sitting down before I can unlatch it my cell rings with a hologram of Happy. Answering the phone he starts with a “Hey, baby girl I just wanted to let you know I’m about to board my flight.”

“Hey, Uncle Happy. Do you know a Morgan Stark?”

“I have no clue about anyone named Morgan, other than an Uncle on the Pott’s side, in the family. Definitely not a Stark.”

“Did, did mom and daddy have another child before me?”

“What? No. Between getting your mother’s meds to a neutral place and their ages it took them awhile to conceive you. You my dear girl, are the last Stark.”

“Okay. Text me when you get back to California, please.”

“Sure thing. Hey, Antonia. Where did the Morgan Stark thing come from?”

“It’s nothing. I’m just going through the cabin finding things. Saw the name.”

After we hang up I open the box to find a red and gold Iron Man helmet.

"3000, can you hack the system?"

"Done."

The helmet turns on. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice says,"Protocol Morguna."

There is a piece of her left after all.

Daddy's face appears, he's holding a baby in a rocking chair. He’s holding me. I know because there’s an exact copy of that image on my bedside table.

“Hey my girl. My Morgan. My Morguna. If you're watching this that means being Iron Man did in fact kill me.”

He looks up at the camera, or most likely in his case helmet, as the baby sleeps in his arms. “This right here, what I'm holding. Its the most important thing thing I've created.

I still get the insomnia bug. I've always gotten it. Plus, I can't get enough of this little miracle in my arms. I feel like I just need to hold onto it as much as I can.

I need to let you know I love you. Make you feel that you are loved. 

So, I'm not sure how old you are. I hope you're an old married lady and the world is safe.

That Thanos was taken out for good. War is ugly. I tried to prevent it but it came anyway. Some stubborn ass kept reminding me we’re soldiers and I didn’t want to listen to him. I wanted to make the world where it was always safe.

I’ve come to realize there will always be a threat, no matter how hard you try to prevent it.

In case it isn't there are some things you need to know. Some people I want to tell you about. Regrets I have. Things I wish went differently. If only I had a second chance. Someone once told me everything deserves a second chance. Someone very special that I messed up with.

So, here’s goes, Once Upon a Time there was a man made of Iron that worked with a team called the Avengers......”

Over the next week I clean the cabin from top to bottom. Work on my course work for Columbia. Straighten the garage and listen to my daddy tell Morgan about how a man named Thanos came to be.

The Decimation of half the Universe. Strange telling him they had one in 14,000,605 chance to prevent the up coming crisis. I remember him from daddy’s funeral. The lady calling him a cryptic asshole under her breath.

I instantly hate this Dr.Strange that is supposed to be able to tell the future and immediately disappeared after daddy’s funeral.

Watch him sing to me, a song he says he heard his Guardian Angel sing to him at night while he was in the caves that kept him motivated to get home.

A song that I would ask for him to sing to me, his Guardian Angel song.

At night I sit on the couch and watch the younger version of my daddy turn into Iron Man and learn to fly with feminine laughter in the background that does not belong to my mother as he calls her a brat.

Rhodey, Sam, James, Shuri, T, Rocket, Peter, Parker when asked as they call or come by to see me tell me they have never heard of a Morgan Stark.

Even though he was a playboy in his youth. I’m not stupid, I’ve read the old news reports on him. The before being captured him. Before Iron Man.

Daddy would never have a mistress or do the polygamy thing. Howard had no long lost relatives named Morgan.

I don’t even bother with mother.

I keep the helmet to myself.

Then I wonder about the unsolvable mystery of who Morgan H. Stark that nobody has any knowledge of, is.

At night I once again dream of my daddy chasing me calling me his Petunia and it morphing into his Morguna. Of me wearing a blue helmet and him asking me if I want some fried worms morphing into crickets on a bed of lettuce.

On January 9th I get a phone call. My cell pops up Happy so I’m expecting when I answer him to start singing Happy Birthday like he does every year.

This year instead he’s calling me for different reasons. “Antonia. Sweetheart. There is no easy way to say this. Your mother crashed her car into a brick building. She died on impact. She..” I stop him. I don’t want the details when he tries to tell me.

On January 11th, once again my family gathers around me as I turn the urn over into the wind of the mountains of California, her ashes flying out into the valley, per her wishes in her will.

On January 20th of 2035 President Ross is sworn in. His first Presidential Order is to reinstate the Sokovia Accords. He renames them the Super Hero Registration Act. Everyone that signed in 2016 is automatically added to the system. Anyone who shall refuse to sign will be labeled a fugitive and a hostile against the United States of America.

Five weeks and three days after my mother died I get a phone call from Rhodey. Happy has had a heart attack.

I’m there, holding his hand as they turn off the machines.

He looks frail and so not like my Uncle Happy. Although I am next of kin I am underage so Rhodey is labeled emergency contact and in charge of signing the paperwork.

He leaves the decision up to me.

“Let him go, Rhodey. Let him finally have some peace.” I tell him.

On February 20th this time it is only me and Rhodey that climb the mountain trail. With Rhodey now being my legal guardian it’s not safe for the others, thanks to the S.H.R.A. and him being in the military.

Besides, I believe Happy would much rather have it this way.

We say good-bye to Happy as the wind carries his ashes out to the same valley where my mother rests, to be with her.

I hope they find each other. I hope they have found their peace.

I look over at Rhodey for the first time noticing his hair has gone completely gray and looks every bit his sixty-seven years.

I get the 3d computer back online and give Shuri a call asking her if I could come for a visit. Then for forty eight hours straight, with Dum-E and Totes by my side, I plan.

In his will daddy stated everything be left to me, including properties. I find a property in north New Jersey in a city called Wheaton that used to be an old army base that is now a flat piece of land. I ask 3000 to do a search of non-registered superhero’s in the construction business. He gives me the number to Luke Cage. He gives me the name and number of a buddy of his in the business.

By that night the designs are sent. Construction begins the next day. Money, it seems, can get a lot done in a short period of time.

I also send an encrypted message to any other non-registers out there.

I then take the arc reactor I’ve been holding onto for twelve years and tell 3000 to run a diagnostic on it.

A week later with the schematics in place I go to the secret compartment of the garage daddy told this Morgan about on his helmet, 3000 accessing and opening the doors. Inside I remove the cover of the small quinjet. I give Dum-E a kiss on the claw and Totes a kiss on her arm, promising them I will be home soon. Getting in I fire up the engine and give 3000 the instructions to head to Wakanda.

Upon my arrival I am met by T'Challa himself with a bear hug. 

"My sister awaits you in her lab. I haven't seen her this excited since she made my new suits many years ago. Whatever it is you are here for I am glad. Tell my staff your needs and they will be met. I am so happy to see you my little Antonia. My kingdom is yours while you are here."

I thank him with another hug before he turns serious. "We must speak of Ross before you leave."

"That's actually part of the reason I am here. You are welcome to join me as I speak to your sister." We have our arms wrapped around each other’s waists as we walk.

"I would be honored."

As we walk I hear a whimper and stop. There, laying curled up in a ball of the Wakanda fields with an arrow in its side is a black panther.

“Careful.” T’Challa warns me as I approach it.

I crouch down as it growls at me. I speak lowly to it as I take a spare shirt from my backpack, tearing it.

“You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?” I keep my voice quiet, placing the shirt where the arrow is. I take a healing balm from my pack as well, rubbing what I can now tell is her head as she uncurls her body.

“Such a pretty girl.” I continue rubbing her body as I quickly remove the arrow. Calming her as she whimpers. I press the shirt to the bleeding wound, trying to stop the blood flow then place the healing balm on the wound.

I stand up as the panther rises. Walking over to me. She licks my hand, rubbing against me, then walks away.

I return to T’Challa. He’s shaking his head at me, a smile on his face. “Only you, my little Antonia. Only you.” I quirk an eyebrow at him. “Anyone else, although we are a peaceful people, would have killed the wild animal.”

“Everything gets a second chance.” He’s looking down beside me.

“It looks like you have a new loyal friend” The panther is sitting beside me at attention. “Come, let us go see my sister.” He says nothing as the panther follows.

“I miss your mom.”

“As do I.”

Shuri jumps me as soon as I walk into her lab. I tell her about my classes at Columbia. How I do my courses from home because I basically have a better lab. Then I begin to tell her why I came.

Then she sees the panther sitting calmly by my side and looks at her brother with questioning eyes.

“Antonia.” Is his only reply, as if that answers her question. She says nothing in return.

I show her my bracelets with the arc reactor stones she had given me. I call up 3000. See tears in T'Challa's eyes as he hears my daddy’s voice. Even though I have spent Christmas with them the past years, I have only shared 3000 with Parker.

"You want a suit of armor." She says.

I tell 3000 to pull up the plans I designed.

"Much like daddy's and your brother's suits. Nanobyte technology with vibranium interlace. Neuro enhanced to communicate telepathically.”

"From the look of these designs you already have what you need. What can I do for you?" Shuri asks.

"Much like your brother's necklace I would like it attached to my bracelets. Plus, add cloaking, stealth and, well, how do you feel about a transport protocol?” I can feel the excited energy coming off Shuri.

"And what color are we making this suit of yours?" Shuri asks.

"Rose Gold."

"You're going after Ross." The King says with a hint of respect and awe in his voice after listening in silence.

"No, it’s time for Iron Maiden to reassemble the Avengers. They’re going after Ross.” I say.

“These designs, Antonia, they are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. My sister, you humble me by asking for my help and giving me your trust.”

“There is another thing, Shuri.” I take my bracelets off. “These stones were a gift from you, your brother, your kingdom. They once powered my daddy’s suit. I would like them to once again do what they were made for and power mine. Plus, I would like it all linked to my DNA by these bracelets so if they were to fall into the wrong hands they will be shocked, knocked out and unable to use.”

“You have figured out a way to link your suit to your DNA sequence.” Shuri looks at me awed. “But why me?”

“And leave you of all people out of the fun of building it for me?”

Shuri jumps on me, wrapping her arms around me, tears in her eyes. “My sister. My sister. Yes. Yes, I will build this for you!”

“Well, I was kinda hoping if mine worked, you’ll make all the Avengers suits and bracelets.”

“So, you have come to Wakanda to steal away my sister.” T’Challa grins then adds as he watches me subconsciously rubbing the panther’s head, “And my panthers.”

“Why do I have the feeling you already have a plan for where your Avengers are going to stay?” T’Challa smirks.

With a command the new Avenger compound fills the room.

“It’s. Oh, my little Antonia. It’s perfect. How do you expect to keep this from Ross?” T’Challa asks me.

“Well. You know that neat little cloaking device you have that disguises Wakanda?” I smile that charming Stark smile at him.

“You, my little Antonia Stark, are your father’s child.” He says with laughter in his voice.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What once was old is new again

For two days I go between training with Okoye, the Wakanda Guard and caring for Umlo as Shuri works on my suit. It’s on the third day I am summoned to her lab where I find a jumping, grinning Shuri and a quiet T’Challa, Umlo by my side. He says nothing when I tell him her name.

Before I can say anything Shuri grabs me by the arm, a shock going into my neck and replaces the bracelets on my wrists. “Wait,” she says as she pricks my pointer finger on my right hand placing it over a reactor stone on the bracelet of my left wrist. I watch as the drop of blood falls, leaking into the reactor stone. I stand there, watching, waiting. Then a beep and 3000 proclaims, “DNA sample sequence accepted.”

T’Challa suddenly becomes Black Panther and lunges at me. With the training I’ve received over the years I do a back flip, side jump combination, internally screaming _protect_. I land on the ground with one leg under me, one knee up, one fist on the floor. I watch as rose gold plating covers my hand then goes up my arm. Before I am standing at full height the helmet is covering my head. Umlo is in front of me on guard hissing and growling as her paw lashes out.

Rose Gold, in memory of daddy. The representative of love.

“ _Hey there Antonia. Miss me?_ ” 3000 says in my head as readings and and data appear in the screen in front of me.

“Care to take it for a spin?” T’Challa asks as Umlo calms at my command and a quiet “I’m safe.”

“Against you?”

“My not so little Antonia anymore. It would be an honor to be your first sparring partner as Iron Maiden.”

“Wait, let me at least tell her what all it can do.” Shuri swipes at her brother. “Think cloak.” The suit disappears but I can still feel it against my skin.“Now think stealth.” This time I disappear. “Now activate.” I think _activate_ and my suit returns.

“You can also use show, as well. What your mind tells it to do, it will do or you can tell your 3000 to do it. And there is this.”

Shuri takes my wrists in her hands and shows me the glowing stones.

“Your father used an arc reactor to power his suit. I kept the last one he was wearing when he died. I turned them to batteries in hopes one day you would follow in his steps. I saw so much of him in you. Every time I see you, I see even more. These stones will power your thrusters, your weapons. Your Iron Maiden can do everything his Iron Man could and more.” Shuri kisses me on my helmet covered cheek, a lone tear on hers.

“Fly our Antonia.”

And with that my thoughts turn to thrusters on and silent beams lift me into the air. I see the open window and with a _“3000, fly.”_ I speed through it, the Black Panther hot on my heels.

T’Challa is laying on the ground panting. “Perhaps I am getting too old for this.”

I grin at him as the rose gold plating folds back up into the bracelets and sit beside him in the lotus position, leaning back on my hands, my face tilted towards the sun. Umlo trots up and lays next to me.

“I must commend you on your flying. How did you learn so quickly?”

I think back to the helmet sitting on the coffee table at home.

“Some kids have their dad teach them to ride a bike, mine taught me how to fly.”

“My father taught me how to be a great King.”

“Like keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.”

“No, that was a dear friend. Ross is a cancer that I let help me so I could be in his good graces. I did not like it at the time. I could smell the stench of corruption on him. Especially after finding out what he did. We must speak if that one day. Perhaps when I can breathe again.”

“Hey, T’Challa.”

“Yes, my not so little Antonia?”

“Want to be an Avenger?”

I leave Wakanda, with T’Challa’s blessings, a new suit, his sister, a black panther and a warning from 3000 that he has detected unknown anomalies in my DNA sequence.

On April 26th, 2035 the Avengers compound is complete. It took four crews working twenty four hours a day and seven days a week but they got it done, every detail, down to perfection. It also helped that the owner of the company has his own super human abilities and hates Ross with a passion.

I’m watching as the family I grew up with just stand there in silence before one by one they walk in. It’s almost an exact replica of the one Thanos blew up twelve years ago today.

With a few upgrades.

“Son of a bitch. You are Tony Stark’s kid.”

I turn around to see one well in his seventies Nick Fury, a forty something Maria Hill with gray streaked hair and a supposed to be dead Phil Coulson that has been leading a secret team of agents that looks like he hasn’t aged. Who have no clue who Morgan H. Stark is, another strike on that front.

Dr. Cassie Lang is already laying claim to the medical bay and the name Stinger, with a matching black and yellow suit and mask. Sam Wilson, Captain America still spry at fifty-one, is moving in with James, The White Wolf that no longer looks like a fresh faced twenty-seven year old but someone that has seen some shit go down, tomorrow. Matt Murdock, also known as Daredevil, is loving the transport and the upgraded suit along with the training facilities.

Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, here touring the facility, are currently in the engineering lab Shuri is banning anyone else from claiming; being fitted for their DNA transports. A few other non-registers have contacted me interested in joining. A drop of blood for a custom made protective suit and human transport is high incentive for joining a team and taking orders.

Plus, they all hate Ross.

Fury is amazed by the set up. Maria Hill has taken over the computer bay and Phil Coulson has offered his counsel. That is until he refuses to give blood for a transport. It’s because he can’t. Nick Fury put Phil’s Coulson’s brain in an A.I.’s body that is an exact replica of his. That’s when I get the story about Tahiti.

I ask him to counsel us anyway.

Umlo is claiming the field inside and outside the compound as her own, sporting a shiny rose collar that connects to my bracelets. Not to control her but to keep track of her vitals and safety.

Parker is blown away when he sees the compound, my suit. The plan for the Avengers, hugs me and cries. He tells me Norman Oswald is the Green Goblin that he has been chasing for over the past decade. Which makes things a bit more interesting since Oswald not only owns OsCorp but is also the President’s Secretary of State.

His business partner, Harley Keener shows up with him. He apologizes for not introducing himself sooner, that it was just too hard. The Psychology student in me can tell that much like Peter, Tony was not the first father figure he lost. Plus, being thirty instead of thirty-five. Let’s face it. Not everyone losing five years of their lives came back in a healthy mental state. Keener, thanks to good mentoring by my father and just being used to weird shit happening, did. He asks if he can be our go to computer guru. If Parker happens to go off on a web slinging spree when Shuri programs E.D.I.T.H. into his eyes on his mask, well, sometimes it’s fun for a twenty-eight year old to relive your youth.

Rocket has a fit when he sees the hanger bay and claims first dibs on building quinjets. Groot loves meditating on the sun deck that I also have a set of gliding chairs on. Nebula and Gamora, well, they’re enjoying the armory. Thor has taken over the game room.

Rhodey on the other hand, when I show him War Machine, gets a huge grin on his face and we end up getting a boogey on our tails. When we land he sits on the ground laughing telling me he’s too old for this shit and starts in on a story about the time my daddy called him from his suit because two Air Force craft we’re trying to blow him up.

I hear footsteps behind me and turn around to see three faces I have not seen since my daddy’s funeral.

Both Clint Barton and Scott Lang have silver in their hair, all three are wearing glasses.

“I can’t believe you actually did it.” The Hulk says in his baritone.

They are older now. Well into their fifties. Bruce in his late sixties.

“One condition.” Clint Barton says, speaking for all three. “Don’t EVER ask us about the Infinity Stones.”

“I won’t.” I promise him.

They start to walk to the front door of the compound when I say “I tried to find Natasha in Budapest but no luck.” Barton stops, Bruce tenses.

“Let her be at peace where she is. She’s earned it.”

“I couldn’t find Steve Rogers either.”

Bruce speaks up and says “You won’t find him where he is.”

“I’m also trying to find a Morgan Stark.”

Clint turns around then with a perplexed look on his face. “Who’s that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. Nick Fury doesn’t know. I was hoping since you were in the Avengers. Well, you knew daddy.”

“Never heard or met him.”

“Actually, it’s a her. Maybe a relative of daddy’s?”

I watch Clint shake his head. “Tony was the last Stark standing until he married Pepper and had you.”

So the mystery continues.

The sound of thunder can be heard as Thor appears with his arms stretched out and a bolstering “My brothers.”

I clear my throat and look at him.

“What is it my fair Antonia?”

I just look at the scorch marks he left on the lawn.

“Transport. Yes. That’s why we have transporters.” Thor nervously responds.

I can hear Bruce teasing him about being afraid of a girl that he’s a Norse God three times the size of as they walk towards the compound.

“Watch her spar sometimes. Her opponents are unworthy. Plus, she makes these cupcakes that are Vahalla on Earth.”

It’s the first week of May and I am well into my third year courses of my next degree. Apparently the professors are having a problem keeping up with me. I transport back and forth between the compound for training and the cabin. Both combat plus Umlo’s training, to get the Avengers in order, which is going amazing thanks to the three older Avengers, Coulson, Maria Hill and Fury.

One day I walk into the compound and see Clint Barton up in the rafters watching Lila, code name Kate Bishop that has claimed the medical bay as well, training in her purple costume with Daredevil, who have been getting “along” since March. He has his old bow and quiver on his back but refuses a new suit.

“Just here to help train and consult,”, he told us when we offered. He did accept a transport bracelet though like the others offering consult. Turns out to be handy and convenient. Shuri even figured out a way for Coulson to have one.

The two training together, I might add, seem to be getting along really well. I sit down next to him as he says “She always had a thing for purple but did she really have to go with the hood?”

“The mask and hood help conceal her identity and she kinda insisted. Not arguing with a woman that gives us medical care and can shoot an arrow without looking at her target.”

Daredevil, with his enhanced hearing pipes up. “Plus her dad is the original Robin Hood.”

Before Murdock’s enhanced senses could register it an arrow lands in his foot.

“Dad!” Lila shouts.

I look over at Clint. A grin on his face. Apparently he also notices how well the two get along. I also notice the hearing aids in his ears and ask him if they need adjusting. He tells me “no, they have worked perfectly for me since an old friend made them special grade when I retired the day of your daddy’s funeral.“

“How come you talk to me?” I ask him out of the blue.

I can tell I’ve thrown him off guard. He’s quiet for a while. “Why do you say that, kiddo?”

“Bruce and Scott help out but barely come around me unless it’s absolutely necessary. You on the other hand talk to me, like right now hanging out up here as we watch the team train. Although you really never tell me if you’ve heard from Nat and how her family is doing. Pictures would be nice, a hologram.”

“I haven’t heard from Nat. She never really was big on pictures. The whole spy thing. She’s at peace where’s she’s at. I don’t need to talk to her to know that. I like being around you because Tony and I used to have these conversations. Not that is the only reason why I talk to you. It’s nice to have someone to have those conversations with again. You’re so much like him. Yet different. He’d be proud of you. As for Bruce and Scott well…..”

“I remind them of daddy and some serious shit that went down. Yeah, mother always asked why I had to be so much like him.”

“I know you’ve had a lot of training and I’m not a Wakanda army but I notice when you shoot you veer off a bit. I know I’m just an arrow guy but I’d like to help you with that.”

I smile at him, wrinkling my nose. “I do, don’t I? I’d really like that.”

_“Oh, I tell you and it’s I’m adjusting. Someone else tells you and you agree with them.” 3000 says in a sassy tone._

“Oh, get over yourself, 3000.”

“What?” Clint looks shaken.

I point to my head. “A.I. is being a smart ass.”

He just nods his head but there’s a haunted look in his eyes.”There’s nothing wrong with being like your father, Antonia. Just so you know you’re your own person, too.”

I lean against him at that and he kisses the top of my head.

By the way,” he asks, “does someone here own a cat?”

While at the cabin I end up watching old messages from daddy’s helmet although I had them transferred to 3000’s files, I still like using it as a projector, listening to him talk about the not so friendly at times adventures of the Avengers, mom, and mostly Steve Rogers while I work through the files on the 3D computer with Dum-E and Totes by my side.

He talks about Steve a lot. About past regrets. The feeling of brotherhood. How he wished Steve trusted him more. How he wished he understood before about family and the feeling of protecting what you had left of it but holding this little one, he says he gets it now. He talks about how they got it wrong. How they both got it wrong, which makes me curious.

While I’m going through daddy’s old files on the 3D computer console, still nothing on Morgan Stark, his last project pops up. Schematics for a functioning time space gps.

“3000, bring up the last recording session.”

I watch as a blue hologram of my daddy appears at the computer. He’s talking to F.R.I.D.A.Y. but I’m not processing what they are saying until a “Model Rendered” is said.

Shit. My daddy invented time travel.

I then hear a small voice echo my own words as well as his.

I watch me but a different me and my daddy interact then walk off, I remember this. It’s the night before he left. I shake my head as two different sets of memories flash like a movie in my ind. The computer is still recording and my mother walks in the room carrying a book, sitting down and curling up on the couch in front of the fireplace. She looks young, carefree, peaceful.

I watch the hologram as daddy walks back into the room, standing beside the couch as he talks to mother.

I see me but not me, the different me again. The me I see in my dreams of daddy chasing me and a Morguna. My eidetic memory remembers this but different, the memories seem different somehow. Like I have two different sets.

I listen to them talk, he sits beside her. I watch little me sneak in and hide behind the couch, they hold hands. She brushes his cheek as he kisses the palm of her hand.

“3000, pull up my mother’s autopsy report.”

“Patricia Hogan, also known as Pepper. Date of birth February 28th 1975\. Date of death January 9th 2035. Age at death 59. Cause of death blunt force trauma to the head. Death upon impact. Heart, normal. Liver showing signs of severe cirrhosis. All other organ functions normal. Toxicology report show no signs of drugs or alcohol in the system at time of death.”

“Police report.” I say.

“Victim died upon impact when vehicle crashed into a brick building after swerving to avoid an oncoming car in the wrong lane. The other driver was charged with a DUI and vehicular manslaughter. Sentenced to fifteen years in prison after making a plea deal with the D.A.’s office.”

“3000, shut down.”

I go to bed not bothering to change my clothes, pulling the covers up over my head as I curl into a ball crying myself to sleep as I realize my mother is dead and I never knew who she really was.

The next morning I have 3000 pull up the file on the functioning time travel gps. Scott Lang and the Quantum Realm file is attached. Daddy has notes on a particle accelerator and the EPR Paradox, which makes sense. It wouldn’t take much to push time through a person instead a person through time.

As I read the files an idea comes to me and I start a new plan of my own.

How do you make a particle accelerator not a particle accelerator?

As I work I have 3000 pull up the files on the Avengers to tell me more about the people my father worked with while he was on the team.

It’s the first day of June. The field surrounding the compound is in bloom and attracting hikers from the forest surrounding it. I walk to the edge of the compound where Rocket, Clint and Peter are standing.

I can hear Rocket snicker as Clint asks him what exactly he is waiting for.

“Just wait” Rocket tells him.

The hikers walk closer to the edge of the compound and suddenly a roar of a panther is heard.

We all listen as the hikers still a “Did you hear that?” can be heard from one of them.

Suddenly out of the knee high field of brush a black panther rises from its hiding spot and starts to slowly stalk its way to the hikers.

Rocket laughs, falling down on his back to the ground holding his belly as the hikers run away in the opposite direction.

Clint looks out to the growing field, the hiking path a cover for the Avengers to get into the compound without leaving a trail when they don’t use their transporters and instead are in a vehicle.

“You disapprove?” I ask him.

“No, Antonia. What you’ve done here. At your age, especially in such a short time. Cloaking the compound, the panther growl and hologram to ward off the occasional passerby. You’ve hidden it and us from a corrupt government, from Ross. It’s totally off radar. All the upgrades yet it’s an exact replica of what it used to be.” A nostalgic look passes over his face. “He would be proud of you.” His gaze returns to a blank mask as he walks away.

“Hey Clint.” I yell towards him. “Who says it’s a hologram?” I ask as he turns around.

I whistle and the panther comes bounding towards me. “Clint, meet Umlo.” I say as the panther rubs against me, jumping up on me with her paws on my shoulders, licking my face. I give her a kiss on the cheek as she rubs her head against mine. She gets down and goes over to Rocket, rubbing against him.

Rocket jumps up going to check on the progress of the newest quintet readings Umlo trots after him.

Clint just shakes his head. “That’s where all the cat hair is coming from.” Then continues to walk off, not the least bit surprised.

“He’s proud of you, too.” Peter says quietly behind me.

“Who, Rocket? I know it’s hard for him to show emotions, his past is something he doesn’t share. I don’t blame him. He feels like he’s alone in this world even though he knows he isn’t whoever tortured him and trust me making him into what he is was torture much like Thanos did to Nebula, but he’s been there for me. You all have.”

“No, Clint. Bruce, Scott. The old Avengers crew. We all are. Hows the old PhD in Psychology degree going?”

“One of my professors is annoyed with me. Trying to get me kicked out of his class.”

“Why? Is there something that has finally stumped THE Dr. Antonia Stark?”

“No. I disproved his theory on Human Behavior and Substance Abuse.”

“So, basically you’re the teacher and your professors the students.”

“What can I say, when you’re teaching your class an improper lesson on the brain reactions versus learned behavior it should be brought up or else you’re doing students and fellow classmates a disservice.”

Peter just stares at me.

“What?” I ask confused.

“I’m just wondering when you grew up and where we went wrong.”

“Peter, how could any of you have possibly done anything wrong?”

“You’re fifteen, Ginny, yet you’re so matured people mistake you for someone in their twenties. You’re five foot nothing, barely weigh eighty pounds and can kick all of our asses. Even when we double time you. You have a panther loyal to you and trained to protect the compound. You don’t even know anyone your own age. You’re so introverted you stay alone with no human contact. Yeah, you have your bots but when you come to the compound, cook for us, you just sit there while we all talk.“

”You should be going to movies, parties, out shopping with your girlfriends giggling over boys yet you’re working on your third PhD. I thought the space trips would help but Ginny you grew up way too fast.”

Peter holds his arms out. “Look around you. You reassembled the Avengers, built a new compound and are practically leading a revolution against a corrupt government. Ginny, my little Ginny, you never got to just be a kid. You’ve been taking care of yourself since M.I.T., maybe even before then.”

“Peter, how is that on you? On any of you? You had a galaxy to protect. Everyone had their own jobs to do.”

“That’s no excuse.” He walks away, back towards the compound, then stops and turns his head eyes downcast. “You should have had a chance to actually be a kid.”

I finish the last of my finals for the semester when the computer beeps and 3000 declares model rendered. I look at the diagram of what looks like an ordinary pen with a blinking light. In truth it is a diagram of a particle accelerator beacon that can link to my bracelets.

Upside, time travel.

Downside, I have only been able to figure location and year I can travel to. The day I leave is the day I arrive to my destination. Rubbing my eyes I go out to the garage. You have to start somewhere.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan finds someone her own age and has the love story of her life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for consensual underage sex

On June 3rd I’m sitting at my computer in the garage, Dum-E and Totes are next to me.

I’m laying my chin against my crossed arms looking at the pen with its blinking red light. 3D pictures of the former Avengers splaying across the room.

I just got done watching my mother change the arc reactor in my daddy’s chest, then the recording jumped to him opening a package from mother of that reactor.

It was the one from the funeral.

Just how long had you been in love with daddy mother?

From when you started being his assistant, when you saw him one day at S.I. as a receptionist or did it just happen like a lightning bolt?

I’m in a weird mood.

Not down or depressed, just tired.

Tired of finding out I didn’t know my mother.

Tired of being me.

Tired of here.

I want to try my pen but have no idea what year to go to. Peter’s words are still ringing in my ears. I don’t know anyone my own age.

I swivel my chair around and around and when it stops I’m faced with the file of one Captain America, Steven Grant Rogers. Born July 4th 1918 in Brooklyn, New York. Subject of Project Rebirth. Five feet four inches, ninety pounds at time of experiment. I cock my head to the side. “What is it about you that made my daddy talk about you so much?”

I have a memory of a blanket, a stuffed puppy and conversations with my daddy at the compound with the rest of the Avengers.

I smile as I remember telling daddy I was going to marry the man whose file I’m staring at someday.him responding with that bright smile and “Sue you are my Petunia. Whatever you say.”

The other Avengers included but daddy seemed more attentive towards Steve, like they shared a secret.

What secret did you two have that you shared?

I do a quick calculation in my head. “Hey, 3000. What did fifteen year old girls wear in 1934?”

“Seriously?” I stare at the black Mary Janes on my feet. Travel up to the knee socks. Take in the the brown and white plaid dress with ruffles at the bottom hem, the short puffy sleeves and white split rounded collar. My hair in curly pigtails with ribbons. “I look like fucking Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.”

_“1934 is five years too early to go off and see the Wizard.” 3000 says dryly._

“Well, it’s only one day and if you’re going to do something, do it right.” I make one adjustment, changing my hair from pigtails to a classic 30’s bun.

I have 3000 set the pen beacon for Brooklyn, 1934. What are the chances of me even running into Steve Rogers?

_“1 in 6,930,446.”_ Is that a smirk I hear in his voice?

“Okay 3000, rhetorical question. Don’t need the actually population count of Brooklyn, New York in the year 1934.”

“Here goes nothing. Dum-E, you and Totes are in charge. 3000, activate.”

I land in an alley way of what by the pictures 3000 found to be Brooklyn New York. 1934, depression era.

I turn at the sound of two voices, one asking me if I’m lost. I turn around to see two very large sized teenage boys approaching me. “No. I’m quit well, thank you. I must be on my way.”

I quickly walk past the boys as one grabs my arm and I hear a quiet voice ring out. “Hey, I think the lady said she was on her way.”

I turn towards the voice and come face to face with one Steven Grant Rogers.

_“Too bad they didn’t have the lottery here. You’d hit the jackpot.” 3000 is actual laughing at me and some inside joke._

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask Steve once again. Okay, for the twelfth time. He’s nursing a swollen eye. Which he got from the guy not holding my arm. Which in turn gave me the chance to flip said guy holding my arm over onto his back, breaking his arm and break the other guy’s nose as Steve held his eye murmuring “okay, ya didn’t need saving.”

“I’m fine, I just need ice. This is me.” We walk up to a rundown shack of a three story apartment building. A patio leading to the front door. “Thanks for walking me home.”

I have a funny feeling in my gut and before I know it I’m saying “Ice really won’t do anything for that. I know a few tricks for bruises. Maybe I can help?”

“Ah.” Steve started fidgeting with his pant pocket. “Sure. By the way, my name is Steve. Steve Rogers.”

Shit. 1934. Howard is starting to get well known. Stark would raise too many questions.

“Maria Potts.” I pop out.

_“Down girl. You sound a bit over enthusiastic there.” 3000 gives another sassy yet dry response._

_“Like you helped come up with something better.”_

_“Touché.”_

Steve gives a cute half smile and I got that funny feeling again. “So….eye?” I point at his swollen bound to bruise eye.

“Oh, yeah. Just let me.” He opens the door that leads to a stairwell. “Watch the first step on the second landing. It’s loose. Our apartment is on the third floor. Sorry for the long climb.”

I watch him as I follow him up the rickety stairs. Back partially hunched. Torn hems at the bottom of his pants. The back sole of his left shoe is coming loose.

“So, you ah really did a number on those guys. A classy dame like you being alone in that alley. Did you get lost after Sunday Mass? Looking for your driver or parents?” He opens the door and I notice he’s wheezing a bit as he breathes.

“No driver and my parents are dead.” Okay. That was blunt. My bathroom at the cabin can fit in this rat hole of an apartment. Captain America grew up like this? How could anyone else live like this? I’m one to talk though, aren’t I? Daddy left me all that money, I’m one of those people.

_“Then do something with it. You’re already funding a revolution of super powered beings with it.”_

_“Yeah, 3000, but I have a feeling I should do more.”_

_“I have faith in you that you will.”_

My nose has been stuck in a book for too long. Oh God. Other than their names what do I know about the people around me? I didn’t even know my own mother. Peter was right. I just sit there, let life go on around me and all I did was walk into a home that can barely be called livable. The ceiling is water stained. The floor boards have cracks in them.

I have barely been here thirty minutes and Steven Rogers has shown me that. What did he show you daddy that made you love him? That’s why you talk about him different isn’t it?

“Oh, um, sorry. My dad died before I was born in the war. It’s just me and my mom, she’s a nurse. She had to go in today. I was actually on my way home from my Sunday shift at the diner. They let me do the dishes for a few hours three or four days a week after church for the lunch crowd. Sometimes my friend Bucky comes by but he got a job in Queens for the summer while school is out. Is that why you’re still out and about dressed in your Sunday best? Looking for a job?”

I look at him, a strand of blond hair falling into his ocean blue eyes. They remind me of the water in the lake by the cabin. He’s rambling and it’s kind of….cute.

“Looking at possibilities.” I look around, see a kitchen attached to the living room. A small bathroom and one bedroom.

“I know, we’re lucky. We got a grander place than most folks. My Ma, she takes the bedroom, I get to sleep here on the couch.”

“You sit, I’ll get to work on that eye.” I walk into the kitchen with a lump in my throat looking at the compact stove and oven, with a quick sassy tutorial from 3000 I turn on the gas burner. Looking around I find a small pot and fill it with water; while it heats I find some old rags that pass as dish towels. I look in the compact refrigerator, I find a bit of milk and some cheese. No wonder his clothes are falling off him.

When the water is almost boiling I ask _“3000 activate my gauntlets cloaked,”_ dunking one towel in the water then ring a bit of the water out before wrapping it in the dry cloth and turning off the burner. _“Deactivate.”_

“Lay down and elevate your head your head back against the arm of the couch.”

“We have a bit of ice.”

“I saw, heat is better. It opens the blood vessels. Listen, you don’t have the supplies I need here so I’m going to go to the market we passed.”

I watch his face fall. “It’s okay, you’ve done enough. You don’t have to come back.”

He’s a puppy. That you want to take home and protect. I’m starting to get your effect on my daddy, Mr. Rogers. “I’m coming back, do I need a key or…?”

“No, we take care of our own around here and watch out for each other.”

Of course you don’t worry about locking your doors. It’s 1934 and everyone is in the same boat.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Walking out the door and down the steps I ask “3000 the nearest market and produce store, please.”

_“You just past it on the way here.”_

In five minutes I’m standing in front of a mom and pop store, the same one we passed on the way to Steve’s apartment.

Walking inside I get a polite greeting from an old man that insists on helping me find what I need. I ask for pineapple, oranges, baking soda, honey and a tin of tea. I noticed an old tea kettle and an empty tin of tea in the cupboard at Steve’s apartment. If I’m fixing the eye I might as well help with the wheezing.

“That will be $3.58.” Whaaaat? Okay. 1934.

I look down at the twenty in my hand. “Actually, can you add a few more things if you don’t mind?” I think I just adopted a puppy.

I’m carrying the cloth bags of food and produce. Flour, eggs, the basics along with the makings of an apple pie. The future Captain America has to like apple pie, right? One thing about living on your own, you learn how to cook.

As I’m walking past an apartment building, this time more careful of my surroundings I get a whiff of lavender. Looking around I see a flower box in one of the first floor windows. “Hey, 3000.”

_“There are no heat signatures around, Morgan. Just take some of the damn lavender.”_

_“3000, are you getting sassy with me?”_

_“You programmed me.”_

I lay two of the bags of food on the ground as I quickly pull four sprigs of lavender from the box and plop them in the bag in my other hand. Picking up the bags from the ground I start humming as I walk.

“Hello.” I call out not wanting to scare Steve as I enter the apartment. I find him sleeping on the sofa. The water on the stove is still hot so I wet another towel and place it over his eye. The swelling is already going down. He stays asleep, not stirring as I put away the groceries and go about making a canned pineapple and fresh orange paste. As I have 3000 start the lavender drying process I start on some soup along with the apple pie, feeling oddly domestic and…..relaxed.

I can hear Steve getting up in the other room as I took the apple pie out of the oven.

“Hi.” He says shyly. “Smells good in here. Is that….pie? You made pie?” He’s looking at it like it’s a steak.

“I made soup too.” I say as I watch him eat the paste for his eye with his fingers. I take it from him, nobody should be that hungry. “That’s actually for your eye.”

“Oh.” He says, blushing. Okay. I adopted a cute golden retriever puppy.

I pull out a chair at their table. The wood is cracked and splintering on both. I think of my cherrywood kitchen island at home that daddy hand made and want to cry. I’ve been in this time period for a little over two hours and my eyes have been opened wider than when I traveled to space.

I tear off a piece of hot bread I had baking with the pie and ladle some vegetable soup into a bowl. I also sit a mug of lavender oil and honey tea next to him to help with his wheezing.

“May I?” I ask holding the bowl of citrus paste up and pointing at his eye.

“That’s not fruit salad?” He asks.

Oh, well, okay then, “It’s a special tropical paste with vitamin C made of pineapple, oranges and baking soda. It helps with inflammation.” I tell him as I apply a generous layer around his eye but especially on his cheekbone where he took the brunt of the hit.

“You know a lot about bruises.” He says emptying the bowl. I wipe my hands off of the paste and refill the bowl for him along with more bread.

“I’ve had my share.” I notice him tense, the spoon halfway to his mouth. “Is someone….?” Protective. I’m getting it daddy.

“Oh, no. From you know, learning how to break noses.” I grin at him, he grins back. “You sure did knock the snot out of those fellas.” You think that’s something you should have seen me double tagging Luke and James on the mats last week.

“You’re not eating?” He asks. No, I want you to get your belly full and not look half starved to death.

Instead I reply with a “I had some while you were sleeping.”

He nods his head. “Tis good.” Can be heard over a mouthful of bread.

“You’re mom is a nurse?” He’s just finished his third bowl of soup and starting in on a piece of apple pie.

“Yeah, a good one too. She’s a lot like you. Kind, nurturing.”

“Thank you. All done?” I ask him after he finishes half of the pie. Taking the bowl and utensils at his nod to the sink. “Why don’t you go elevate that eye some more on the couch while I clean up?”

“You don’t have to…”

“I didn’t say I did.”

I notice him sit back on the couch, taking out a sketch pad as I clean up the kitchen. Leaving the rest of the apple pie on the table.

When I’m done I notice the sun is starting to set. It was time to head back.

“Well.” I say. “I put the rest of the soup in your refrigerator. It should be easy to heat up. The pie and bread are on the table, the bread is wrapped in a cloth.”

“Can I walk you home?”

I hesitate, appreciating his manners and wanting to keep me safe.

“I’m actually not too far away.” Only a hundred and one years from here.

“Oh.” He says brightening up. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

I only smile as he starts to walk me down the stairs.

At the front patio we stop and he’s kicking his foot back and forth against the wood, head down. A slight blush on his cheeks. “I, ah, really appreciate you doing all that cooking and helping me with my eye. It feels really swell to be honest. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Maria. You’ve been calling me ma’am all day.”

“Thank you, Maria.” And my stomach is doing that fluttery thing again.

“You’re very welcome, Steve.” He holds his hand out and I shake it. It feels clammy, he’s nervous.

“I hope I see you around,” he says. The blush is back.”Oh, wait. I, ah, made you this. As a thank you.” He hands me a drawing I hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying. It’s of me, a profile, at the sink and I’ve never felt more beautiful than I do at that moment.

I nod a thank you, choking up, and walk away from Steve Rogers.

I get back to the alley I appeared at. “Home, 3000.”

,

I land back in the empty garage. Dum-E greats me with a claw caressing my cheek, Totes hugs my leg. They follow me into the cabin where I put the drawing Steve gave me on my night stand before I go shower and change for bed, neatly putting away my dress and clothes from the day before brushing out my hair.

I stay awake all night, laying in bed staring at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, thinking of a fifteen year old boy, sleeping on a torn old beaten up couch, looking at the drawing he gave me. Bent over a sink with a bad back scrubbing away at dirty dishes while his mom works double shifts so they can scrape by. I think of cooking him soup and making him an apple pie and for one day for the first time in my fifteen year life, I felt free.

_“You’re thinking too hard.”_

_“So sorry to disturb you. You’ve been mysteriously quiet. I was sure I would be getting a lecture.”_

I think I actually just heard him roll his eyes. _“Why would I lecture you?”_

_“The dangers of time travel.”_

_“Just go with your gut, Antonia. I’ve never known you to go against it before.”_

When the sun comes up I have my mind set.

The next morning I email the dean of my Psychology program, telling him I’m taking the semester off. I actually get a reply back telling me that’s a good thing, he was starting to worry about me burning out, he will be happy to hear from me when I’m ready to return.

I then message both Peter and Parker, telling them I’m okay. I even send them a picture of me waving so they know I haven’t been kidnapped with today’s date, telling them I’m going on vacation and will be off the grid for the time being. The cabin is on lock down and to kindly be sure the Avengers don’t burn down the compound while I’m away. In others words, keep Luke out of the kitchen. Also, Shuri and Rocket know what to do for Umblo.

I take a few stacks of cash out of the safe in daddy’s office making sure I get smaller cash value bills this time putting the drawing Steve made me in.

I ask “3000 could you make these more 1930’s compatible, please?”

”Can I? If you weren’t so honest we could be running a money laundering racket.”

”I’ll take that as a yes.”

I got lucky with that twenty yesterday, the trusting 1930’s, nobody checks dates on bills. I take a hot shower and get dressed in my black Mary Janes, knee socks and plaid ruffle dress. I put my hair back up in a classic 1930’s bun. Then I head out to the garage. I give Dum-E a kiss on the claw, Totes a kiss on her little arm and tell them they’re in charge before giving 3000 the lock down command for the property.

I set the particle pen for the same coordinates. Brooklyn, 1934 and give 3000 the command to activate.

I’m back in the alley, this time I don’t have to break anyone’s nose. The next thing I know I hear a quiet voice say “Is that the only outfit you own? Are you out job hunting again? That’s the only reason a gal would have her church clothes on.” Steve is standing there, broom in hand. His brow is wrinkled. “Did you sleep out here last night?”

“I, ah….” I got nothin’.

_“Told you, lottery.”_

“Hold on, I’m almost done with my shift.”

I look at the bar I’m standing behind. “You work here too?”

“Anyone can clean up other people’s messes. It’s how you do it that matters.” He dumps the trash and puts the broom away in the back alley storage. “Come on, let’s get some breakfast.”

As we walk to his apartment Steve tells me about his friend Bucky, “He’s ‘tis a year older than me. He’s living in Queens right now workin’ at the warehouses, stocking trucks. He lives with his granny. We met on a playground when I ‘twas five, a bully was teasing a gal and I was the one that ended up getting hit. Bucky stepped in. That’s when me and ma realized Bucky’s granny lived across the hall from us. Bucky went to live with her when his ma and pa died in an accident.”

A strange memory hits me. Of sitting on the floor of daddy’s workshop while I play with Dum-E. He’s working on the discs in my bracelets while pictures and words are on a hologram. The name Bucky is familiar with Steve but I swear from my eidetic memory I saw mother and sisters, no mention of a grandmother. I didn’t pay attention to the photo. I wonder what Bucky looks like.

Steve helps him with his schooling, Bucky helps him when he finds himself getting in a bind. As in, he gets in trouble because of his stubborn Irish American self and Bucky ends up getting him out of it a majority of the time.

I tell him “your eye is looking better.” The swelling is barely noticeable and no signs of bruising.

He tells me “I put the paste on a few more times, before bed last night and this morning before work.”

I ask him “what time do you get up?”

“For this job I just left around two a.m. for the diner job, unless it’s Sunday about eight for the breakfast and lunch crowd, Sundays at the diner are mostly after church lunch rushes. They also let me work at the fish factory, mopping up. I get up around four for that job because that’s when the fish start rolling in.”

“My Pa, he immigrated from Ireland, met ma during the war while she was sent there in the medical reserve to help. They both came back here but he was sent back. He was killed when his infantry, the 107th was hit with mustard gas during an attack on their base. Ma found out she was pregnant with me shortly after.”

“What about your pa?” He asks me.

“He died when I was three during a battle.” I leave out the part about Thanos being an Eternal-Deviant hybrid that took his army from planet to planet committing genocide then collected a gauntlet of Infinity Stones and decimated half of all living creatures in the universe with one snap of his fingers.

_“Smart choice.”_

_“I don’t know what to do here.”_

_“Try opening your mouth and lets words come out.”_

_“Oh, why didn’t I think of that.”_

_“Antonia, just be you.”_

_“That’s what I’m afraid of.”_

_“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”_

“My mother died this past January in an accident.” Just be me.

“So, who do you stay with?” He stops walking and asks me.

Oh, between a cabin by a lake with some robots for companions and a compound of superheroes.

“I stay with friends of the family.”

“Yet you’re wearing the same clothes from yesterday to look for a job. They don’t have any extra dame things for a gal to wear?” He’s looking at me with a furrowed brow. “You look tired.”

I couldn’t sleep last night in my comfy full size bed because I kept thinking about you being here.

“Bad night” I tell him instead.

We get to his apartment, his mom is back at work.

“You did dinner. Breakfast is on me. Is porridge okay?”

“Sounds great.” I say. I’m not sure what to do with myself, so I sit on the couch. My eyes start to feel heavy as I watch Steve move around the kitchen. Pretty soon I’m laying down and I fall asleep watching him move about. That one patch of hair keeps falling on his forehead.

I miss when he covers me with a patchwork quilt.

When I wake up, it’s mid afternoon and I see no sign of Steve. I sit up to see bread and cheese on the table by the couch that holds the one solitary lamp in the room. I snack on it as I walk around, looking out the window at the Brooklyn surroundings.

I see the playground where Steve and Bucky met. Picturing him going against an older boy, unafraid of what might happen to him. I hear the door open and turn around to Steve walking in. “Have a good nap?”

I shake my head yes. Which is true. I slept better on a beat up old couch than the most expensive of beds in my entire life.

_“What does that tell_ _you? Why don’t you just go with it and enjoy the ride, Antonia? There’s nothing to fear here.”_

“I hope you do not mind. I, ah, talked to Mrs. McCloud. I know you said you have been staying with friends of the family but she’s offered her spare room while Bucky is away. All ya need to do is help with the cooking and cleaning. It’s getting hard on her. Some laundry, dusting. That type of stuff. She’s a real nice lady. Although she does call me out with a Steven Grant Rogers when I come to supper with a black eye or bloody lip. I, ah, sometimes go over and eat with her and Bucky when ma is working.” He holds out some sacks in his hand. “Um, Mrs. Ellison on the second floor, her daughter just got married. Left behind a bunch of things she grew out of. They look to fit you.”

He got me a place to stay and clothes. I take the sacks, putting them on the couch, looking inside to see blouses, skirts, a dress or two. A couple of pairs of sandals and some undergarments.

“Mrs. McCloud is looking forward to meeting you. I also, well, I talked to my boss down at the diner during my shift, he could use a waitress. It’s only for a few hours a couple a times a week but I thought maybe it would be a start.” And he got me a job. I’m sleeping away without a care in the world and he’s worked two jobs today, plus took care of shelter, clothing and a job for me.

_“It’s called kindness, Antonia. You’ve seen it before.”_

_“Yes but not from some I met yesterday.”_

_“Well, it’s not everyday you meet the future Captain America either.”_

I walk over and give him a hug, “Thank you.” He tenses at first then puts his hands on my back. His face is beet red when we pull apart. Picking up the sacks for me, he asks “Are ya ready to go across the hall?”

_“My, my. Antonia Stark, did you just voluntarily show and initiate affection?”_

_“Maybe.”_ I may be talking in my head but I can’t hide the smile forming.

_“Good for you.”_ I can hear a smile in 3000’s voice as well.

Mrs. McCloud is an older woman, in her seventies. She has dark blue eyes and keeps her gray hair back in a bun. Her age and hard times show on her face but there is still a beauty to her hidden beneath the wrinkles. She tells me her Bucky is a good boy and how he and Steve like to get in trouble. Shows me the room I’ll be staying in for the time being.

I don’t know how long I’m staying here, all I know is right now and here is where I want to be.

_“Then be here. Learn to live in the moment.”_

_“Oh, 3000. I just want to…..”_

_“Experience life?”_

It’s a twin size bed. The mattress is lumpy but it feels cozy. Steve lays the bags of clothing items he got me on the bed. He helps me unpack them, hanging the clothes in the closet. Our hands brush as he hands me a skirt and he ducks his head, turning around. He blushes even more when he accidentally picks up an undergarment so I take over the rest, putting them away in an empty drawer. The bras are small and the underwear look like silk shorts with lace trim around the thigh area.

After the unpacking is done and I’ve changed into a simple attire of a white blouse with short ruffle sleeves, a navy blue pleated skirt that falls to my calves and some ruffled socks with a pair of tan sandals; we take a tour of the small apartment. It’s a bit bigger than Steve’s but it’s the same layout.

She tells me “My Stevie told me all about you and how sweet and polite you are. I do need help with most meals, mostly dinner, the cleaning and laundry. Bucky can handle the washer better than I can.”

We go walk down the stairs outside and she shows me a tub attached to what looks like a large pasta sheeter, with a wooden crate next to it. She asks me “Have you ever used a washing tub before?”

It’s not exactly a lie when I tell her “no.”

“Ah, your ma and you must have done it all by hand then, poor things.” She says to me then proceeds to explain the entire complex uses the same machine. There aren’t as many tenants as there used to be. Hard times have had to make people move but there’s enough living here to have to make a laundry schedule. I look at the washing tub and then think about the automated washer/dryer I have back at the cabin. My engineering mind starts on ways I can tweak the machine. She has brought a load with her, “It isn’t one of those fancy new electronic ones,” she tells me.

I have the feeling the building couldn’t handle the wiring for an electric washer. She puts a load in, shows me how to fill the tub with water and a bit of soap and then sits on the crate while Steve cranks the attached handle that turns the tub round and round. After a few minutes he empties it by pulling on the lever. Showing me how to empty the soap and add new water to rinse. Steve cranks it again, soap coming out. He cranks it until no more soap can be seen and then opens the top. Mrs. McCloud is talking while he does this. Telling me about her Bucky and how happy she is to have some company. It’s been lonely all by herself in that apartment, plus, a bit hard on her tired old back. She tells me how her Bucky has been taking care of her for the longest time. How hard it was when her son and wife died but her Bucky looks just like him.

Steve smiles at me and murmurs the instructions on how to wring the water from the laundry with the pasta sheeter that isn’t a pasta sheeter. Ah, okay.

He shows me how to do a pair of pants, loading them on the platform then rolling the lever on the wringer while holding the handle down.

No, wonder Bucky does the laundry. It’s a workout all in itself. I look over at Steve. People totally underestimate him, don’t they? He has me do the next pair of pants. I can tell he’s hiding a smirk. “No laughing allowed.” I murmur to him. “I wouldn’t dare do that, ma’am.”

Huh, who knew. Steve Rogers has a sassy streak.

Mrs. McCloud starts to get a little warm and offers us some lemonade, which Steve immediately offers to go get but Mrs. McCloud insists she needs to stretch her bones a bit.

Steve watches me as I wring out the laundry then shows me where to hang it.

We start talking about the diner “I’m a bit nervous.” I admit.

“No, worries Ria. The folks that come in are friendly and the boss man is the kindest old man you can ever meet.”

“Ria?” I ask with a quirked eyebrow.

Steve blushes, “Sorry, it just slipped out…”

“No,” I say with a soft smile. “I like it. But only if you’re the only one that uses it.” I say, my face down as I look at him under lowered lashes. Other than Peter and the others occasionally calling me Ginny that started off as a joke, I’ve always been Antonia. Ria sounds almost, intimate. Personal.

He smiles at me and that flutter in my stomach returns along with a feeling of pressure in my chest I haven’t felt since I was three and a memory of a dream floating in space surrounded by a rainbow of stones.

“I’ll go with you when we’re done here to meet Mr. Tucker, if you like. He’s the owner of the diner. He’ll tell you when you start and what days.”

“I’d like that.” I say as we pin the clothes to the line. “Are you still sketching?” I ask him.

“It’s a hobby. Just something that lets me get rid of the stress of the day.” He tells me.

“You’re very good at it.”

“I have some pads I use. Sometimes I use a napkin from the diner if inspiration strikes me and I have a moment to myself.”

I notice he has a mix of an Irish and Brooklyn accent. My memory bringing up the videos of the recordings my daddy made with his Iron Man armor showing that at some point in time he’ll loose it but sometimes the Brooklyn accent sneaks in.

Mrs. McCloud returns with the lemonade as we finish the last of hanging up the clothes. She brings us two glasses “This is for your good work.” She tells us as she hands them over. “You two enjoy the nice Summer afternoon. Myself, well, I think a nice nap is in order.” She smiles at us and gives me a hug.

Steve takes down a dried old sheet from the line and we walk over to an old shade tree.

We sit, sipping our lemonade as he tells me stories his ma told him about his pa. I tell him stories about my daddy.

I once again leave out the Aliens, the Secret Government Agencies and that he left me messages about him and regret. Oh and the Iron Man Avengers thing that he’s going to lead in the next Century in a red, white and blue suit. Well, one of those. My personal favorites are the darker suits. I mostly tell him stories I heard from Rhodey and Happy.

Daddy never said in his videos what their falling out was about. He mentioned Siberia, something 3000 hasn’t been able to hack off of F.R.I.D.A.Y. yet, that he missed him, forgave him, sometimes hated him but most of all regretted they weren’t together to fight Thanos when he snapped his fingers. That maybe if they had just put their bullshit aside they could have prevented it. That’s why he was so angry when he returned from Titan. They were supposed to do it together.

I do know though that the Steve Rogers in front of me is a kind hearted soul with a good heart. I’ve barely known him two days and he’s taken care of my needs as a virtual stranger but not once treated me like a damsel in distress.

I sit with my legs tucked under me as he sits back against the tree. We move on to other topics besides our fathers. He talks about his love of art. How capturing a moment on a piece of paper, a mood, a glance at a moment in time captured by your mind can unleash the imagination. How looking at a painting can tell you what the person painting it was thinking, feeling.

“Pictures, cameras, are neat and all, they capture the moment right then and there. ‘Specially the new ones, but there’s just something about taking the time to put charcoal or paint to paper and canvas that makes it more…”

“Intimate?” I finish.

He ducks his head and blushes with a quiet “Yah.” Clearing his throat he starts back up “Here I am going on about me. What do you do that gives you that feeling of creativity?”

“I…” Build robots, make Security plans, design suits for a team of superhero fugitives, hack into government databases, watch my dead dad on an old helmet that’s starting to peel “……..like to tinker.”

“Tinker? Like with what?”

“I like to build things, take them apart, put them back together. See if I can make them work better.”

“I knew you were different.”

I’m the one that blushes this time, ducking my head as the wind blows a strand of hair across my face from my bun.

“Different ‘tis not always a bad thing.” He murmurs to me as he tucks the loose strand behind my ear. “Books.” He says.

“Oh, that’s easy Les Miserables and Notre-Dame de Paris. The original French texts.” I say, leaning back on my hands as I stretch my legs out, crossing my ankles.

“You’re a Hugo fan?” Ha says intrigued. I nod a yes at him. “And you read French?” I look over at him to see if he’s teasing me like Parker does when he finds me reading a book in another language besides English. But he doesn’t have a teasing look on his face. He has a look of wonder, amazement, and those lake blue eyes are sparkling like the sun shining off the water.

“Why those in particular?” He asks.

“Les Miserables because it’s a story of redemption, morality, justice. Norte-Dame because Quasimodo means well even though he’s misinformed and although it may end in tragedy, part of the journey is the end. What about you?”

“Oh give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away…..”

“Robert Frost, from A Boy’s Will.” I say. “Well, Steven Grant Rogers is a lover of poetry.”

“I, ah.” He stammers this time it’s him that blushes.

This time it’s me that reassures him. “I think it shows a good heart.” I say as he smiles that crooked smile at me and I brush that one piece of hair off his fore head.

“It is eerily terrifying

that there is no sound when a heart breaks

Car accidents end with a bang,

falling ends with a thud,

even writing makes the scratching sound of pencil against paper.

But the sound of a heart breaking

is completely silent.

Almost as though no one,

not even the universe itself

could create a sound for such devastation.

Almost as though silence is the only way

the universe could pay its respect to the sound of a heart falling apart.”

“It’s pretty but I have neva heard it before.”

“It’s an old poem by Nikita Gill”

Steve’s face is perplexed. “I thought I knew all da poets. I haven’ heard a them.”

Old for me. Almost a millennium away for Steve. “She’s gaining popularity. I imagine you will hear of her one day.”

“Movies.” He says trying to hide his nervousness.

“Ah…..” Shit. Have I seen a movie?

_“Hate to break it to ya but no, you haven’t. Really should get out more.”_

“Seriously, Ria? You don’t have a single favorite.”

“I, ah.” This time I’m the one stammering. Realizing Peter was right. I was so busy being an adult I forgot to be a kid and have fun.

Steve is looking at me with that furrowed brow again. “You’ve never been to the shows, have you?”

I stay quiet and he stands up. Holding out his hand to me. Our lemonade long gone.

He helps me stand, leans over picks up the sheet, folding it and the glasses.

“Come on, ‘tis time to see Mr.Tucker.”

I look down at my attire. “You look perfect.” Steve tells me. “ I am gonna take these upstairs real quick,” he says holding up the sheet and glasses. “I’ll meet ya back down here.”

I sit on the steps leading up to the patio. Much like the dress wearing a skirt feels foreign. I haven’t worn one since my time at the academy for the gifted uniforms, living in jeans, shorts and pants.

The meeting with Mr. Tucker goes smoother than I thought it would. I will wear normal clothing attire. Much like I am wearing now. I will work the after church lunch crowd on Sunday afternoons along with two morning shifts, breakfast and lunch Fridays and Saturdays. Those are his busiest days. They just happen to be the days Steve works too.

As we walk back to the apartment complex I notice we are taking a different route. I ask Steve and he tells me to just be patient.

We stop in front of a theatre. The marquee sign proclaiming “City Lights” starring Charlie Chaplin underneath playing.

“Steve..?” I start to ask.

“I do believe I just might be able pull together two quarters for the gal that stocked my ma’s refrigerator with what was left of the money she had.”

I open my mouth but he stops me. “You really think I wouldna noticed? Plus, somebody made me a really good apple pie. It might be my favorite kind from now on.” He looks at me sideways smiling as he asks the person at the window for two tickets. He stops at a counter and gets two bottles of soda pop and a popcorn.

We find our seats towards the back, where it’s not as crowded, Steve opens the pops on the back of the chair in front of us and hands me one, putting the popcorn between us as we watch the opening credits. I hear Steve laugh and I smile hearing the sweet sound when the statue is unveiled and Charlie Chaplin wakes from where he was across the lap of said statue. Our fingers accidentally brush when we both reach for some popcorn, he looks at me with a slight blush to his cheeks smiling at me and ducks his head before looking back up to the screen.

All the sudden my hand stops with a kernel of popcorn in between my fingers halfway to my mouth.

I’m on a date with Steve Rogers.

My first date like EVER.

Then what feels like the electricity of a lightning bolt goes through me.

Shit.

I’m in trouble.

“ _Aww, my girl has her first crush.”_

_“3000, shit. What am I gonna do?”_

_“Go with it, Antonia.”_

As we walk back to the apartment after the movie I feel fidgety. I have no idea why. I mean, I’ve kicked the asses of every male at the compound. Yet here I am walking beside someone like you would everyday and my palms are sweaty.

Shit.

My. Palms. Are. Sweaty.

Relax Morgan. It wasn’t a date. He was just saying thank you for the food and doing the sweetest thing ever by taking me to go see my first movie.

_“It was a date.”_

_“Not. Helping.”_

“So, as first movie adventures go, how did that turn out for you?” Steve asks me as he walks along, hands in his pockets.

“It was……fun.”

“You say that like you don’t experience it that often.” We’re in front of the apartment steps that lead up to the patio. We turn and look at each other.

“I realized while I was watching the movie, that I really don’t.”

The sun is starting to set and there’s a slight glow in the air. Steve reaches out and tucks another strand of hair behind my ear.

“That’s a shame. You know, Ria, with this lighting you look almost angelic and angels really should have good experiences.” The fingers tucking the hair behind my ear brush against my cheek.

Oh my dear galactic starbursts, shy Steven Grant Rogers has game when he wants.

“There you two are.” Mrs. McCloud peeks her head out the front door, giving a mega watt smile. “Steve you and your mama are joinIng us for dinner. I made creamed chicken and biscuits in honor of my new house guest.”

“You know, I have a feeling she wants you to stay with her because she likes you and your company, not because she might need some help ‘round the place.” Steve has a grin on his face.

“What did you do,” I ask as I walk past him to the open door, “praise my good graces and tell her I’m the best thing you’ve ever met?”

I missed the murmured “maybe” he let out. 3000, didn’t.

Steve definitely gets his looks from his mama and his personality. I have to admit I’m a bit hesitant to meet her but the Psychology student in me vomits out the statistics of children with parental unit issues in my head. So, I basically tell myself to get over it.

She greets me with a hug, introducing herself. She looks haggard and older than her thirty-five years. She looks a lot like my mother did when she died, except she was in her fifties. Or at least what she looked like in the pictures Happy sent me of them, I should say.

Life, and time, spent their toll on both women.

I’m used to dinners with the Avengers at the compound but not so much dinner chatter.

But this. This seems more intimate. More togetherness. I don’t have to feel guarded.

I’m experiencing yet another first today.

That I belong somewhere.

I’m laying on my side on the lumpiest mattress imaginable yet I’m comfortable and smiling but teary eyed. After dinner Steve and I did the dishes together while Mrs. McCloud and Rogers talked in the living room each taking up a wing backed chair. Afterwards, I made some tea, making a mental note to get some more lavender to dry out and honey since Steve spends time over here as well. He’s not wheezing as bad after walking up the stairs today so I’m hoping my concoction is helping just a tad bit. I’m mentally kicking myself for not packing asthma medications before coming back.

“Those are such lovely bracelets, my dear.” Mrs. Rogers says to me as I hand her a tea cup and saucer.

“I actually made them” I tell her, which is well, the truth.

“Those stones look so real but you can tell that isn’t real gold. Probably the only reason you haven’t been robbed or sold them. You did such a wonderful job making something out of nothing.”

“Ma.” Steve had said. I patted his knee as I sat next to him. Well, not right next to him. Like maybe on the other side of the couch next to him because my palms were getting sweaty again. What it is with that boy?

Ugh!

I could tell she wasn’t insulting me but in fact giving me a compliment. It felt weird, a compliment coming from a motherly figure.

“I’m sorry, dear. I’m tired. It has been but a long day. I get a bit a run in the mouth when I get that way.” She says with a smile.

I return her smile. A compliment and an apology. Okay. Emotions and brain don’t go there.

She had suddenly sat her tea on the coffee table, jumped up and said she would be right back. When she returned she had a box of pictures in her arms and Steve actually covered his face with his hand. I could hear a mumbled “My Lord, save me.” From him.

She sat between me and Steve and for an hour showed me a picture of her and her husband on their wedding day and one of of him in uniform the only two pictures she has of him, plus baby and growing up Steve. I have a new appreciation for technology. Although the pictures were lovely they came nowhere close to the pictures of the next century. Steve definitely had his ma’s looks and smile. She told me his pa had red hair and a broad Irish accent with green eyes. She fell for him the moment she saw him in the hospital ward patching his leg up.

The only hiccup had been when I went to my room to change for bed and a knock sounded on my door. I had forgotten to close it all the way, used to being alone at the cabin. Steve walked in with my back to the door and my blouse off. I quickly pulled the sleeveless gown over my head turning around expecting to see a blushing Steve but instead of a red faced blush I saw a face and eyes red with anger. He mumbled a “nite” then shut my door, hard.

Although the night had gone well up to that point I can’t help but wonder what I had done to make him look at me like that. I suddenly hear a tapping on my window. Turning over I see Steve crouching at the window on the fire escape. Getting out of bed, I put on the robe Mrs. McCloud loaned me.

“Steven Grant Rogers, just what are you doing?” I whisper as I open the window as quietly as possible . He doesn’t come inside or say anything but instead holds out his hand to me.

I take it, climbing out onto the fire escape. With blind trust I follow him up to the roof, telling me to hold onto his pant leg. He’s above me, taking my hands to help me up over the edge of the last of the ladder.

He looks out over the city. “I sleep up here sometimes. When it’s a clear night,” he starts “I draw, I read. I just let the air and the sounds refresh me, like renewing my soul, my spirit. I can let everything go up here. The day. The bad stuff. Bucky hasn’t even been up here or knows about it. It’s my sanctuary.”

“You’re not mad at me for leaving my door open.” I state.

“No, I may have knocked but I shoulda been a gentleman and waited for an answer. I’m so used to just walkin’ in, it being Bucky’s room and all. I’m sorry for invadin’ your privacy.”

“You saw my back.” It dawns on me. I’m so used to wearing clothing that covers the scars on my back that I almost, at times, forget I have them. Almost.

He turns and looks at me. Tight lipped nodding his head.

I open my mouth but he holds up his hand. “When you’re ready, if you ever are, tell me then.”

He walks over to a tarp and removes it to uncover a bed made of quilts, pillows and a small wooden crate with a lantern on it. He lights the lantern and bowing with an outstretched hand to me, “My lady.” He smiles as he tugs the end of my braid at my waist with a whispered. “You’re just full of surprises.” Raising his eye brow at my hair tied around the end.

“I don’t have anything to tie it with.”

I take his hand and settle down on the quilts, much like I did earlier that day on the sheet by the tree. My legs tucked under me. My hands in my lap. Steve sits a respectable distance away from me, next to the crate and the light of the lantern. Before I ask what is going on he leans back on one of the pillows against the side of a man made wall, opening a book against his bent knees, and starts reading.

“Oh give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; and give us not to think so far away…..”

He reads from Robert Frost’s A Boy’s Will to me with the softest, calmest of voices until an alarm goes off. It’s four a.m., time for him to get to the fishing warehouse. He closes the book and escorts me back to the window of my borrowed room.

“You haven’t had any sleep.” I say to him nervously.

“Don’t worry, it’s Tuesday. Short shift day.” He turns to leave as I go to close the window, then stops me with his hand. Peeking his head under. “But maybe I can get in a nice nap later this afternoon by the shade tree if someone had some laundry to do.”

I grin at him. “I do believe Mrs. McCloud has a few loads that needs doing.”

He leaves me with a rush of his finger against my cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and a small wave.

I fall asleep with a smile on my face and for the first time in twelve years I dream of my dad’s voice, a rainbow of stones and get the feeling of rightness.

I wake up to a rainbow of ribbons on the pillow by my head. A smile blooming on my face as I run my fingers over them.

_“Stop underestimating how people feel about you or what you deserve.”_

On Tuesday afternoon I watch Steve nap against the old shade tree as I do the washing for the day. A rush of heat went through me at his smile when he saw I redid my braid tying it off with one of the ribbons, even braiding part of the length into it. As I sit on the crate I come up with a gear and crank lever system with a foot paddle. I have 3000 draw up the plans on the hologram computer from my bracelets. I contemplate about actually building it, there’s something relaxing about the simple yet manual task.

After the washing is done and Steve gets some rest we go for an after dinner walk, talking about simple things. I teach him some words in German. He tells me about art and how sometimes if he looks long enough he can see what he’s looking at like a charcoal drawing. We stop in front of a house. It’s one story. Small. A wood shack that looks like it’s about to fall in we passed the first day to the apartment complex. The same neighborhood he passes everyday on the way home.

We just stand there, quiet. Then he just starts “The first time I remember my pa hittin’ ma I was four and she hid me under the kitchen sink. He was drunk. She tucked me in real tight, told me to watch my head on the pipes made me promise not to move no matter what I heard, then closed the curtains that cover the bottom because we didn’t have them fancy doors. I heard her whimper with each thud of his fist. I peeked through the opening between the curtains. Her nose was bloody. Her lip split. Every time she fell down, she got back up. When he was done he just walked away. He liked hanging out in the attic. I asked her why she just didn’t stay down. She told me you always stand back up.”

“You lived here?” He just nods his head.

“Some of his war buddies were over one night. One of them his old Sergeant. He was hitting the bottle hard. Had his war medal, accommodations and pictures in the attic. One of them told him maybe he should slow it down some. He ignored them. He was coming down the attic steps when he fell. Broke his neck. Those war buddies had been in the same infantry as him. Didn’t want ma to call the cops because her face was healing from the night before. It didn’a matter though. They just turned their heads at a woman getting beat, he was a war hero after all. I’m not sure where they took him. But I neva saw the body again. Next thing I knew the Sergeant told ma to tell everyone he was called back to duty before I was born, gave her some money. All I remember is a story of his infantry getting attacked by mustard gas. They even put a tombstone at an empty grave with 1918 on it. Protect your own even with a lie. Ma couldn’a afford this place on her own so we moved to the apartment complex. It was a fresh start. The widow of a war hero that nobody knew.”

“And a son that doesn’t stand down to a bully.”

“Not like I ever stood in front of her and told him to stop.”

“You were four.”

“Just turned five when he died.”

“What did you want, to take the beating for her.”

“Coulda.”

“You were smaller, he would have done more damage to you.”

“Like hearing her and not doing nothin’? Sometimes doing nothin’ is just as bad as the doing.”

“She was protecting you.”

“Yeah. Who was protecting her though?”

“The person that is doing his best to protect her now.” I walk up to him and lay my chin on his shoulder. Rubbing my cheek against his.

The damage was done though. Like I told Nebula, not all scars you can see.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday go about the same. With me doing laundry, working on gear shifts while Steve naps and reads after work. What he is reading he is keeping a secret from me but I figure since he isn’t asking what I’m doing with the washing tub, I have no right to ask him what he’s doing. After dinner each night and Mrs. McCloud is off to bed, Steve comes to get me at the window. On Tuesday night he shows me the door to the roof access as we quietly leave the apartment. He thinks it’s safer than the fire escape. Much like the rest of the tenants, Mrs. McCloud leaves her door unlocked. I sit on the makeshift bed as Steve leans against the wall. On Thursday night he reads me Thomas Campbell.

I get up Friday morning, both excited and apprehensive. I dress again in a simple blouse, this one an off pink and a black skirt. The undergarments are different. I have been forgoing the bra, I’m barely an A cup so you can’t really tell and the panties feel like loose silk shorts with lace around the thighs. They’re actually very comfortable. They remind me of the shorts I sleep in in the future. I do though put my hair back up in a 30’s style bun. Which gets a frown from Steve when he sees it.

Steve walks with me to the diner, brushing his fingers against my hand every so often in comfort. Mr. Tucker introduces me to Bruno, the cook. Along to Hilda and Vern. The other waitresses on shift. Today Hilda is showing me the ropes. I will be making ten cents an hour, plus tips and most of the business was behind the counter. Every once in awhile I would look in the window as I grabbed a plate to see Steve hunched over the sink scrubbing away at the dishes. As far as success goes, I only dropped ten plates got twenty orders wrong and Hilda told me to go home. All within my first hour. She stopped me on my way out.

“Come back tomorrow, get your nerves under control. We’ll try again.” The red head told me. Encouraging me instead of scolding me.

I spent the rest of the day putting the paddles and gears together on the washing tub. Clapping in success as it works. Later that day I show Steve the process and explain to him “instead of sitting there constantly twisting the lever all you have to do it sit there and pump your foot against the wooden paddle as the straps I wrapped around it and the lever, along with the works of these gears, makes the lever twist. Then,” I grab his hand excited, “it’s the same when you rinse. See this pulley and bucket? All you have to do is fill the bucket then when it’s time to rinse unscrew this cap I placed down here on the bottom with four holes in it for the water and soap to drain, then screw it back on and pull the string attached to the bucket of water. It’s less work and strain on the back, especially for the older tenants. Oh!” I exclaim as I pull on his hand that I’m still unknowingly holding with both of mine. “The rollers that wring the clothes out are attached to a paddle too. So, you don’t have to try to keep the clothes straight and twist the roller lever at the same time. You just pump it like the wash tub after pulling them together and……you don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?” Plus, rambling on doesn’t help.

I look at him. He’s smirking with sparkling eyes.

“You’re saying in an afternoon, you built a way for the people who live here to have an easier way to do their laundry. That’s what you’re saying.”

“It won’t take as long either.” I pipe in. Okay. He’s giving me a strange look. Not a Rhodey or Peter strange look when I’m explaining something and they’re trying to look encouraging and understanding but a weird strange look. That I can’t take anymore. “What?!” I blurt out.

“You’re amazing.” He squeezes my hand and I get a jittery feeling in my stomach, I drop his hand and tell him I have to go get dinner started.

_“You know it’s okay to show affection.”_

_“I felt jittery.”_

_“Hand holding is a natural affectionate display. It’s okay to like him, Antonia. You’re allowed. You don’t need permission from anyone to have feelings.”_

_“I have plenty of feelings. I have feelings towards Peter, Clint, Parker, Umlo. I have feelings towards people.”_

_“Those are familial feelings. Romantic feelings are different. Just, let it happen my girl. Let it happen.”_

That night after dinner Steve takes me up on the roof and pats the quilt next to him. He hands me a copy of the Notre-Dame de Paris with a smile.

“You want me to read this?” I ask. “To you?”

“Yes, please.” He smiles at me shyly.

“But how will you….?”

He takes out the English version from behind a pillow.

“You’ve been reading the Hunchback of Notre Dame while I’m doing laundry so you would understand what I’m saying?” He ducks his head. “How did you even find it?”

“Mr. Collins, down at the grocery. I remembered his wife was French and loved reading. When she died last year he packed all her books away. She also happened to have the English version packed away, too. He let me have both for only a dolla’ when I asked him if he had them both by chance. I told him I know this really smart gal that likes to read the French version and I wanted to read the English version so.”

I cut him off with my finger against his lips.

I look at him. This boy. That barely weighs a bag of grain. That works three hard manual jobs. Spent an entire dollar on a book. For me. I lean back against the pillows, our shoulders touching, opening the book. He leans his head back and closes his eyes as I start.

“ _It seems your Steve is already set on you.”_

_“He’s not my Steve.”_

_“Yeah. Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”_

_“Oh…..shit. He is my Steve.”_

_“Welcome to first love, dear Antonia.”_

I smile settling closer against him and start reading to My Steve.

“il y a quelques annees qu’en visitant, ou, pour mieux dire……”

Needless to say Saturday at the diner went a lot smoother and Saturday night we may have touched shoulders and knees while I read to him.

I’ve been up since two a.m., when Steve left for his job at the bar, acting like a fucking girl.

_“News alert you are a girl.”_

_“Not. Helping.” I think my A.I. just laughed at me._

_“I wouldn’t dare.” 3000 says in a sassy tone._

He asked me to church. Well, Sunday Mass. He’s Irish Catholic. My parents were atheists. I’ve never set foot in a church and now I’m freaking out because I don’t know what to wear to church. It’s just a building. That Steve believes in.

_“Trust me. You’re dad believed in something.”_

_“He never talked about it and how would you know?”_

_“He believed in you because I do.”_

_“3000, you getting sentimental on me?”_

_“Who, me? Never.”_

It’s eight a.m., I’m fixing breakfast for the four of us, porridge, when Mrs. Rogers knocks on the door coming in, Steve behind her. He looks worn. He’s also carrying a package wrapped in brown paper, with twine around it. We eat our breakfast with small talk between Mrs. McCloud and Rogers while I’m still silently freaking out inside. It’s not like I don’t know the Bible. I have an eidetic memory. I’ve had it memorized since my required religions class in high school.

Mrs. Rogers is wearing a long sleeve, button up, high neck, green jacket with matching skirt to her ankles holding a black scarf. Mrs.McCloud has attired herself in a dark blue ankle length dress holding a black scarf as well. Steve has on what must be his only suit and tie, dark blue, that barely fits him. I want to go grab some of the money I have hidden in the broken floorboard under the bed and buy him a new one.

I’m wearing the brown plaid dress I arrived in along with my black Mary Janes. As Mrs. McCloud and Rogers sit at the kitchen table sipping their tea, Steve comes up behind me at the sink, handing me the package he brought with him as I turn around.

He nods towards my room. “Go try it on.”

Giving him a puzzling look, I gently take it from him and head to my room. I close the door, sitting on my bed, and carefully unwrap it. Inside I find a folded long sleeve floor length rose colored dress with a white collar, along with a rose colored long veil lace scarf. A hand written note saying “every pretty gal needs a pretty dress” underneath.

He bought me a dress. It reminds me of an exact dress my daddy brought home one day, except that one came to my knees. Tears are in my eyes not only because of my daddy but this hard working young man bought me a dress and thinks I’m pretty. It’s not like no one has never said it to me before. Rhodey, Bruce, Peter, Parker, my daddy, but Steve has said it in more ways than one on different occasions and it feels like my heart could burst.

He makes me feel pretty.

_“Try it on. I want to see you in it.”_

I change into the dress, change into a pair of white dress shoes from the clothes Steve got from his neighbor for me, I take down my hair from the bun and brush it out, letting the curls do their own thing as they cascade down my back.

When I approach the floor length mirror in the corner a quiet _“Perfect,”_ comes from 3000.

I pinch my cheeks with my fingers and bite my lips to bring blood to the surface for color.

I stop.

Oh. God.

I’ve turned into a girl.

_“Thought we already established that.”_

Giving myself a mental shake I walk into the living area carrying the lace scarf where the other three are waiting. I do not hear the murmurs of the two women saying “how pretty” I only look at Steve, who meets my eyes and looks at me with wonderment.

_“You have my blessing.”_

_“For what?”_

_“To marry the poor sap. You have to be over twenty though. Twenty-three is a good marrying age.”_

I hold up the scarf as Steve walks over to me, taking it from my hand. He places it over my head right above my forehead and fluffs it out over my chest as it cascades down to my elbows, he slides his hands down my arms giving me a smile.

Shit.

I’m in trouble.

As it turns out Mass was very educational. Of course sitting by Steve and his fingers brushing mine helped but I was riveted by the message of love and forgiveness. It wasn’t what I imagined church to be.

It also turns out that Mr. Tucker wasn’t kidding about the after church crowd being the busiest. I barely had time to change out of my new dress into a blouse and skirt, putting my hair up in a bun before we made it to the diner and straight to work. Thanks to my quick learning skills and eidetic memory I’m calling out orders and writing short hand like a pro. It was so busy that Steve and I worked through the dinner shift too. It also helps to have an A.I. in my head as long as I have the bracelets on.

Tired and grimy from an afternoon and evening of work we both retire to our respective apartments after Steve escorts me home, agreeing to meet on the roof in half an hour. Long enough for me to change into my night clothes, wipe some grime off and braid my hair. When I get up there Steve is already there. I know Steve is tired, anyone can look at him and tell, he’s been up since two this morning. He’s laying down on the quilt, eyes closed but not asleep, hands pillowing the side of his face. This boy having to be a man, working practically twenty-four seven. Oh, how people underestimate him.

I attempt to read but my eyes are heavy. I lay down, facing Steve, mimicking pillowing my hands under the side of my face. I’m looking at him when he opens his eyes.

“I want to go to art school.” He tells me. “Maybe work at one of those fancy studios drawing cartoons. I want to make people laugh, happy. Make all the bullies in the world go away.”

“I want to be a doctor.” Well, technically I already am one. “Make things in the world better, safer, kinder. Make it so nobody has to know the feeling of losing a parent to some evil wanting power. There are murmurs overseas of a man wanting that now.” Like an Eternal-Deviant hybrid thinking he knows what’s best for the world. It’s ironic. The world is about to go to war because of a power hungry human wanting the same thing a power hungry Alien wants almost ninety years from now.

Oh, how easy it would be to go find Hitler and just end it all. To find Thanos in this time, but it doesn’t work that way.

“Ria, I believe you can be whatever or whoever you want to be. I also believe you could save da world if given da chance. I’ve heard murmurs of a man in Germany. You’re a smart gal. You think he’s a threat. Don’t you?”

“I know it.”

“‘Tis another war brewing.”

“There’s always a fight somewhere, somehow. No matter how you try to protect the world it comes. The best way to protect it though is to be ready.”

“Do ya think they’d let me fight?”

“Honestly? I want you as far away from any fight as possible but knowing your stubborn Irish idiot self you’d find a way to get right in the middle of it.”

“Stubborn Irish idiot, huh?”

“Mmhmm.” I whisper sleepily. “My stubborn Irish idiot.”

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. He likes doing that. Before settling his face back on his hands. “I wouldn’t want to be anyone else’s.”

“My mom had a bad day. When I was ten.” Tears are gathering in the corners of my eyes. “She just….had a bad day and now even though I can’t I’m afraid of being a mother, a parent. I remember after another bad day right after daddy died my uncle taking me to get my hair fixed and the nice lady told me she was going to turn me into a fairy and then all I could think about was wanting to be a fairy because fairies can fly away.” He doesn’t ask what I’m talking about or for me to elaborate.

“I remember one day when we first moved in, right before I met Bucky, looking out the window and this guy helping my Ma from this fella harassing her, then talking to her. She was smiling, laughing. I’d neva seen that before. He ‘twas big, muscles the size of heads, but she didn’t act like she was scared of him. She was actually smiling. Smiling. My ma, smiling. ‘Twas such a wonderful sight to me. All I could see was his back, his blond hair. Him helping her. My pa never helped her. He never made her smile like that. For a brief moment I wondered what it would be like to have him as my…..There I was at five years old afraid of turning out like **_him_** until I saw how a man can show kindness. We are not our parents Ria. I saw how he dealt with that fella and knew then that’s how a man should be. We dona own their demons unless we choose to. We can choose to continue to carry their demons with us or we can break the cycle and decide to be……”

“Someone gentle and kind that doesn’t put up with bullies, that protects instead of hurts.” I cup my hand against his cheek. “No matter what your size. Even if it makes you a stubborn Irish Idiot.”

We’re looking into each other’s eyes when I start to hear a soft baritone voice.

“Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

Lay down your head and I’ll sing you a lullaby

Back to the years of loo-li, lai-lay

And I’ll sing you to sleep and I’ll sing you tomorrow

Bless you with love for the road that you go

Ay you sail far to the far fields of fortune

With Diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet

And may you need never to banish misfortune

May you find kindness in all that you meet

May there always be angels to watch over you

To guide you each step of the way

To guard you and keep you safe from all harm

Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

May you bring love and may you bring happiness

Be loved in return to the end of your days

Now fall off to sleep, I’m not meaning to keep you

I’ll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay

May there always be angels to watch over you

To guide you each step of the way

To guard you and keep you safe from all harm

Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay”

“That’s pretty.” I whisper. “My daddy sang that to me. He called it his Guardian Angel song from when he was captured.”

“My ma used to sing it to me when I ‘twas smaller.” He whispers back, both our eyes drooping shut.

The next thing I know Steve’s two a.m. alarm is going off so he can get to work at the bar.

I dream of the feel of lips brushing over my forehead and a whisper of “sleep, love” as a quilt is pulled over me.

I wake up Monday morning with a quilt tangled in my feet. I hear Steve coming up the walk from his shift at the bar. I rush downstairs, Mrs. Rogers has left for her shift and Mrs. McCloid has her volunteer work at the hospital today. I rush into Steve’s apartment getting pots and tea kettles started with boiling water as Steve walks though his door. He stops and stares at me. I get the feeling of domesticity.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” I tilt my head. “Steven Grant Rogers. Why do you have a bloody lip? And a cut on your cheek that is still bleeding?”

He tilts back on the balls of his feet, hands in his pockets.

“Know what. You don’t even need to answer that. You just can’t resist a bully, can you?.” I touch his cheek as more blood pours out , running down my hand. “Let’s get that cleaned up, and closed up, then some food in you before your shift at the diner. Actually, maybe you should skip it.”

“I canna’ miss my shif.” He says around his split lip, sitting on the toilet.

I stand there and look at him. “You’re a stubborn idiot.” Then I leave the bathroom, going into the kitchen I mix an adhesive paste while boiling some water and two spoons. I notice blood on my left bracelet by one of the reactor stones, so I take them both off, laying them on the kitchen counter by the sink so I can wash them when I’m done. I grab some cloths from the cabinet and soak them in the hot water. He’s sitting there with his head down. I tap his shoulder.

“I got blood on my shirt.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I know how to get blood out then. Isn’t it?” I place a warm cloth on his cheek and lip. Holding them there. I pat them dry, then dip the back of the spoon in the adhesive.

“Trust me?” I ask.

He looks at me with soft eyes. “With my life.”

I pinch together the cut on his lip, rubbing the back of the spoon over the cut. I change spoons and do the same to his cheek. I look at him. The young man with a heart of gold that can’t walk away from a fight, even if the odds are against him.

I lean down and kiss his cheek, right under the cut. “You’re an idiot, a stubborn Irish idiot.” I say again. “But you’re my brave stubborn Irish idiot.” I cup his cheek and rub my thumb over his lip next to the cut. We smile at each other.

I don’t hear when the bracelet beeps in the next room and 3000 says “DNA sample sequence accepted.”

The next three weeks fall into a routine. Steve works his three jobs. I cook, clean, do laundry and work at the diner. Sundays we go to church. At night I either read to him, he reads to me or we just lay there on our sides looking at each other talking until we fall asleep.

One morning in the midst of sleep I feel Steve slide out from under me, sometime during the night pillowing my head on his chest in my sleep. Before I know it, it’s Sunday July 1st.

Monday morning he tells me he has a surprise for me, that he has the entire day off. Bruno is letting him borrow his truck for the day. What he doesn’t tell me is he promised Bruno to paint his fence for free as a trade. When we get to the truck I see bags in the back, with towels and a brown bag tucked inside. Up front is a basket with drinks, sandwiches, fruit and various other items.

“Hey, Steve. Um. Won’t you get in trouble if you get caught driving?”

He looks at me as he opens the passenger door for me. “As you said, only if I get caught.”

We drive a good thirty minutes, he’s safe and a good driver. He’s done this before. Well, color me surprised. Steven Grant Rogers has a rebel side to him. Huh. It’s, um, okay sexy.

“What ‘tis the frown for my lovely lady. I’d my drive’ Marin’ ya nervous?”

“What? Oh, no! You’re great at it. Makes me wonder when did you start driving?” I ask him. Turning my head to look at him and once again ask why so many people underestimate him.

“Twelve.”

I turn back around to look forward and see…..an enormous Ferris Wheel.

“Steve?”

“You said you’ve never seen the ocean. Or been on any type of carnival ride.”

“Steve.”

“Welcome to Coney Island, sweetheart.” He says, leaning over kissing my cheek.

_“Oh, sweetheart. He’s beyond smitten with you. I am so glad you let me come along for this.”_

He takes me to a changing area and hands me the brown sack. A swimsuit. Or a 1934 version of a swimsuit which looks a lot like a cloth one piece pant suit. With ruffles. But pants, finally. I leave my hair in the bun I put it in earlier.

That’s it. I’ve decided the early 1900s had an obsession with ruffles on girls.

_“He likes spoiling you.”_

_“He does, doesn’t he? Maybe too much.”_

_“Antonia. Dear, he loves you. A man in love wants to spoil his girl.”_

_“Wait. He, he loves me?”_

_“Oh, baby. Haven’t you figured it out by now? It’s okay to love him, too. Breathe, let it sink in and go have fun.”_

I walk out to see Steve in much the same attire, except his is sleeveless. Coney Island is a lot more crowed than I expect it to be. Steve tells me it’s because it’s the week of the 4th of July and basically the only touristy spot they got around here to have fun.

He holds his hand out to me and we walk down the sandy beach. The grains feeling like an epsom salt foot rub. “What are you thinkin’?” He asks me.

“How small I am.” I’ve seen other planets, stars, moons but “standing beside the ocean I never realized how small and fragile humans are until now.” I didn’t realize I said that last part out loud until I feel Steve squeeze my hand.

“It’s easy to feel lost sometimes. Even easier to feel found. Ready for your first dip?”

I step to the waters edge as a wave breaks and washes ashore, floating over my toes then the gravitational pull taking it back into the depths of the sea. I know the physics behind it. The gravitational pull of the moon. But standing beside it a majestic feeling overwhelms me. Like with every wave that washes over my toes and feet, I’m renewed. The water is washing it all away into the vastness that is the ocean. I feel no stress, no pain, no anger, no need to save people from themselves. For the first time in my life, I feel like…..me.

He’s given me books, dresses, shelter but this, this is the greatest gift anyone could ever give me.

He splashes me. Steven Grant I’m a little shit Rogers, splashes me. After the first timid step he helps me walk out deeper into the water up to our knees. He looks at me when I stop, our hands still holding tight together. “I don’t know how to swim.” I answer his unasked question. Yes, daddy used to throw me into the shallow part of the lake and I would float one top of the water. We had strict rules no going in or around the water without him but when it came to actually swimming. He was supposed to teach me when he came home.

“Do you trust me?”

“With my life.”

He tugs on my hand until we are waist deep. “Take a deep breath and pinch your nose with your fingers.”

I do so and feel his hands tug on my waist pulling me down with him. I come up sputtering, my hair soaking wet.

“STEVEN GRANT ROGERS!”

“Congratulations, Ria. You have had your first dunk in the ocean.” He smiles at me, then splashes me with both hands full of water. So, I do what any battle ready fighter would logically do. I splash his skinny ass back.

I’m laughing as he keeps splashing me, as we keep splashing each other. We dunk each other a few times as we have our water fight.

When we come up he has his arms around my waist and holding me close. Our faces are close together as we laugh. I look at him to see him just staring at me. With a whispered “Ria” he leans his face closer and his lips touch mine.

It’s tentative. Short. Not a peck but a meeting of lips that touch for more than 30 seconds. He leans back, looks at me and leans in again. This time I lean in with him and our lips move against each other when they touch. His lips tugging on my bottom one.

He pulls away from me, letting go of my waist but making sure I can’t fall over in the water.

“How about a swimming lesson?” he says with that crooked smile.

“Ria? Ria? RIA!” Steve yells, diving under the water looking for me. I swim up behind him when he resurfaces and pull him under. “What the….Don’t ever…” He yells, jumping up. He’s crying.

“Steve, I’m okay.” I say cupping his cheek. He cups my face, kissing me harder than he did before, then puts his arms around me, pulling me close to him like I’m the most fragile thing ever to be in his possession.

“Just don’t. Don’t ever scare me like that again.” He buries his head in my neck.

I comb my fingers through his wet hair, kissing his temple. “It’s not my fault I have a good swim coach, you know.” I can feel his shoulders start to shake and a muffle laugh against my neck. He puts both hands on my lower back right above my butt and pulls me full length into him. We float there like that as the water bobs around us.

We decide it’s lunch time when Steve’s stomach grumbles. He holds my hand as we wade then walk out of the water settling on the towel we already laid out. He wraps another around me patting at my arms, lightly rubbing them as he looks at me. Our sandwiches end up being a soggy mess so we decide to dry off, change and take a walk around the grounds. My hair is still wet and the curls are a messy array of springs around my head. When I walk out of the dressing area, Steve is waiting for me. He takes a curl in one finger tugging on it, smiling that crooked smile of his. After taking the bag of wet clothes and towels to the truck he holds my hand as we walk along what the consider to be the 1930’s Coney Island boardwalk. I have my first hot pretzel, with mustard because you HAVE to have mustard on a hot pretzel.

Steve has just a tiny bit on the corner of his mouth. I wipe it away with my thumb, licking it off. “You’re right, it is better with mustard.” I say to him, looking at him from lowered eyelashes as he stares at my thumb in my mouth.

He stops a random stranger and asks him to take a photograph of the two of us. The woman with him whispering how sweet. The first one that we don’t even notice he takes of us looking into each other’s eyes. Steve is cupping my cheek and I’m leaning into his hand. The second is of the two of us looking into the camera. Steve behind me with his around around me. We’re both smiling and our cheeks are touching.

Steve kisses me again when we are sitting at the top of the Ferris Wheel. Just a gentle meeting of mouths. He kisses me again when he drops me off at Mrs. McCloud’s door.

That night on the roof we don’t read or talk. I sit down and Steve undoes my braid, pulling a brush off the crate. I sit in front of him as he brushes my still wet hair. “Don’t eva cut it. It’s beautiful. Natural, like you. Gals these days try too hard to get a fella’s attention when all they have to do is be demself. Those gals do all sorta things to demsleves pin it, roll it. Paint their faces and lips. They don’t hold a candle to you though. All you gotta do is wake up. Your gorgeous dark, curls. Eyes more tempting than the most richest of decadent chocolate truffles.”

I turn around and look at him as he rubs his thumb against my cheek. “Skin as soft as clouds, as delicate as porcelain but it’s a contradiction to you, how strong you are. How smart and clever. Soft of heart and compassionate.” He rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. “Lips as plump, red and juicy as the ripest of berries.” He whispers before he leans over and kisses me.

He pulls back, a look of pure possession, loyalty and love in his eyes and the words slip from my lips before I can stop them. “I love you, infinity.”

He smiles back at me, whispering “I love you……infinity.” He lays back pulling me with him.

I hear a sniffling sound. It’s not Steve.

_“3000? Are you…..are you crying?”_

_“Happy tears, my girl. Happy tears.”_

I just lay with my head on his chest as he runs his fingers through my hair and we fall asleep as I listen to his heart beat.

It’s July 3rd and I know from the Avengers records that tomorrow is Steve’s birthday. I take some cash out of the floorboard. Steve has gone off for the day after his morning shift to Bruno’s, telling me he needed to take care of something. I’m walking down the main streets of Brooklyn and I don’t know what to get him. A book on poetry? Art supplies. I see an old antique store and walk inside, looking around I see it. It’s perfect. The owner tells me the price, it’s from WW1, $50. I gladly pay it then take it home and with the upmost care, wrap it.

_“He’ll love it.”_

_“You think so?”_

_“I have a feeling he’ll carry with him always.”_

“So, it’s the 4th of July. Ma’s working a double tonight and Mrs. McCloid wants to go see that fireworks show that Stark fella is putting off to kick start his new company.” Steve is leaning against the kitchen counter as I cut up vegetables. “I was wondering if you wanted to go or….?”

“Actually, I was hoping we could watch them from our spot on the roof? Just the two of us?”

He smiles at me. “That sounds even better.” He puts his finger under my chin pulling my face towards his and gives me a gentle kiss before saying he’ll see me later, he has to finish something at Bruno’s.

I spend the day cooking and preparing the roof top. Extra lanterns, a large crate with a tablecloth over it, napkins and utensils by the plates and bowls at each place setting, pillows as seats with a wrapped surprise tucked behind the crate. A candle in the middle I made yesterday, some matches, even Mrs. McCloud’s small radio. The sun is setting as I take the stew simmering in the Dutch Oven it’s been cooking in all day carefully upstairs to the roof, along with an Apple Pie and hot bread wrapped in a towel. I was able to make smaller candles when I made the larger one, only five, but it’ll do.

I hear Steve pull up as I finish getting ready in the rose colored dress he bought me for church. It doesn’t fit like it did when he first gave it to me. My hips are wider. My chest has decided to grow but none of the small sized bras decide they want to fit. To top it off, I can see an inch or so of my ankle where once they were completely covered. I do my girly thing, pinch my cheeks, for color, bite my lips to plump and color them. He likes me natural. I leave my hair down, curls cascading to my waist.

I hear him come in my front door. He doesn’t even go to his place anymore unless his ma is home. I’m not sure when I started thinking of here as my home rather than 2035.

“Ria?” I hear him yell.

I step out of my room, my hand on the door jam and he stops dead in his tracks. He has white paint smudged on his cheek along with a bit of dirt and sweat. “I thought we could have dinner on the roof tonight? Watch the fireworks?” I smile demurely at him.

“Yeah, uh, just let me go freshen up.” He stumbles as he walks backwards, his eyes on me.

“Okay, I’ll meet you on the roof then?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right up.”

The sun has set when I’m ladling beef stew with potatoes and vegetables into bowls and placing broken up pieces of hot bread on side plates when I hear the roof top door open. Steve has scrubbed himself clean. His hair is wet. He’s wearing his Sunday suit pants and shirt, he skipped the jacket. He went with a belt instead of his daily suspenders.

I’ve taken off my shoes and knee socks, legs tucked under me sideways as he sits across from me. I already lit the candle, so there is a soft glow of light along with the scattered lanterns. The radio is playing soft tunes in the background.

“This smells, really, really good.” He says. “Wait, is this real beef?” He asks as he spoons the stew.

I may have dipped into my floor bank again.

I just smile. He eats three bowls.

I find out he’s been painting Bruno’s fence. He tells me blushing. That made Coney Island even more special to me. This man, who turns sixteen today, that others see as a scrawny, sickly boy. This man with a heart of gold.

And that’s when it hits me.

I don’t want to leave him.

I move the dinner dishes and place the Apple Pie in the center of the makeshift table beside the candle. I place the five candles in it, lighting them. “Ria?”

I softly start to sing Happy Birthday To You as he blushes.

He blows out the candle. “Did you make a wish?” I ask. He smiles that crooked grin at me as he digs into the slice of pie I cut him.

“You know, I’ve never danced.” I say.

“I really don’t know how.” He ducks his head.

“Oh.”

He stands up, holding his hand out to me. “Maybe we can learn together.”

I take his hand with a smile as he pulls me up. He pulls me close, holding one of our hands together against his chest as he places my other hand on his shoulder. His hand on my lower back.

Our bodies are touching, chest to chest.

“I’m think we’re supposed to move.” I’m whispering against his lips.

He starts swaying against me as we kiss then suddenly he pulls away from me. Walking to the other side of the roof by the quilt bed. Blushing with his back to me, his hands in his pockets.

I walk up behind him, placing my hand on his shoulder he tenses.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, I just. I just need a minute.”

“Did I do something wrong?” I ask him.

He spins around taking my face in his hands. “Neva. You can neva do anything wrong.”

“Wait here.” I say to him. I kneel, reaching my hiding place behind the crate and return with the package I wrapped yesterday. “Can’t have a real birthday without presents.” He brushes my cheek with his fingers. “And here I thought you were my present.”

I watch as he unwraps the brown paper, undoing the twine, then opens the box. “It’s an antique.” I say when he remains silent. “From WW1.” He’s not saying anything and I’m starting to get nervous.

He takes the compass out of the box, putting it aside with the paper and opening it.

“I saw it and thought of you. I thought if you ever get or feel lost, it would help you find your way back.”

“It’s perfect, Ria.” He whispers. He sits it on the crate beside the quilts and takes my face in his hands again. Starring deep into my eyes. “You’re perfect.”

I feel something brush against my thigh and….oh. Oh. OH.

That’s why he was embarrassed before.

_“3000, don’t take this the wrong way but I kinda would like a little privacy for a bit.”_

_There’s a smirk in his voice. “Please, I really don’t want to hear whatever is about to happen.”_

_“3000, are you encouraging me to be a wanton?”_

_“No, just go be in love. You know what you’re doing. I trust you and some things are meant to be. Enjoy and by all means do what I would do.”_

_“Not to break the mood but you just sounded like playboy Tony Stark.”_

_“Did I? Oops. Goodnight. Go get your man.”_

I take off my bracelets and place them on the crate.

He’s kissing me again when I say against his lips “I’ve never fuc…had fondue with anyone before.”

He pulls his lips and face away from me, “Ria?” He asks with a quizzical frown, his hands still cupping my face.

I step away from him. My hands going to the back of my dress, undoing the buttons. He watches me carefully as I pull the collar shoulders down and remove my arms from the sleeves. I let the dress fall to the rooftop as I stand before him in a pair of smaller, silky white panties with lace trimming around the thighs. His breath hitches as I pull the waist down letting them fall on top of my dress.

I step out of the pool of clothing. Walking to him. Pressing my body against him.

“Ria.” He breathes.

“Steve, make me yours.” He kisses me. Turning us around, holding the back of my head with his hand as we lay down on the quilts.

He leans back on his knees, looking at me. One hand on my chest, the other up against my head.

I watch as he unbuttons his shirt, pulling it off. He hesitates as he gets to his undershirt. I sit up, taking his hands as we pull it off together. He’s avoiding my face.

I lean forward and kiss his chest, right where his heart resides.

He starts kissing me again as he toes off his shoes. Reaching back he pulls off his socks then starts on his belt. I lay back down watching him as he stands and lets his pants and boxers fall to the ground. He’s blushing again as he stands there. I bend my legs at my knees and open my thighs.

He kneels down between them, a finger sliding down my chest over my stomach.

He lays down on top of me. “I don’t have a way from getting you….”

“It’s okay.” I tell him. “I can’t get, it’s not an issue.”

He leans his forehead against my. “Oh, Ria.”

“It’s okay. There are plenty of parentless children out there. One day I’ll….”

He kisses me again, pulling back saying, “I’m not very….”

I lean up and kiss him. “You’re perfect.”

He cups one cheek with a hand as the other disappears. I feel an odd sensation at my vagina opening and….oh. He guides the tip of him to align us together.

He lays fully on top of me. His hands cupping each side of my head as he kisses me, my hands cupping the top of each of his shoulder.

I let out a small gasp against his lips as he enters me.

“Ria?” He asks against mine.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. I just feel…” Different, full, loved. He pulls away from my lips, looking at me. I smile at him.

He stays still, just staring into my eyes.

“Isn’t there. Aren’t you.” I trail off.

“ I just want to feel you around me and see how beautiful you are when I’m inside you.”

I feel my breath start to pitch. My chest rising faster and faster. He stays still, even when I move my hips against him.

“Steve.”

He slowly moves against me, sliding out.

“Steve.”

“My Ria.” He says against my lips as he starts to slide in and out slowly and gently. “My beautiful, perfect Ria.”

“Steven.” I gasp.

I can feel an odd sensation building. The firework show starts going off above us.

Our lips moving against each other’s when I let out, “I love you, infinity.”

He runs his thumb against my cheek as he says, “I love you, infinity.”

“Steven.” I gasp out again as I fall apart, he kisses me harder as I feel him spill himself inside me with a “My, Ria.”

“Are you cold? He asks me.

He’s still on top of me, laying there, his head pillowed on my chest. I whispered a soft “don’t” when he went to move.

“No.” I say, my hands playing with his hair.

“We’re not gonna do this again.” He says, leaning up on his elbows, looking at me.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I can do better.” I start.

He leans down and kisses me. Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, his favorite thing to do, when he slides to his side.

“No.” He’s looking deep into my eyes again. “You were perfect. It ‘twas perfect. We’re not doing it again until I’ve properly courted you, dated you, spoiled you and saved up enough so as soon as we’re old enough, I can marry you. Get you a house and find you as many babies and children as you want.”

“Yes,” I say against his lips. “Oh, Steve, yes. Yes. Yes.”

“Steve?” He’s still laying on his side, running his fingers through my hair, like he can’t stop touching me. He pulls a quilt up over us.

“Yes, my beloved?” He asks, kissing my temple, my cheek, the side of my mouth.

“In the Bible it says when a man knows a woman, she becomes his wife.”

He’s quiet, then a “Yes.”

“So, technically I’m already you’re wife.” I say biting the side of my lower lip.

“Oh, my dear Ria.” He says, rolling over onto me, taking my mouth with his yet again.

“I Steven Grant Rogers take thee Maria Potts as my wife.” He whispers against my lips.

“I Maria Potts take thee Steven Grant Rogers as my husband.” I whisper back against his lips.

We lay there, kissing. A feeling just as intimate as when he was inside me.

We fall asleep in each other’s arms under the stars of a perfect night.

I feel a kiss against my temple when his alarm goes off for work and a “Sleep well my beautiful bride. I love you infinity.”

I’m in that place between sleep and awake when I murmur “I love you infinity, my husband.” I fall back into the land of dreams with a tug on my hand.

I wake in the morning, covered in a quilt. The sun is up. Steve has left for work but there is a drawing of me sleeping with Steve’s scrawl of my beloved written across it with an infinity sign on my pillow beside me.

On his empty pillow, an empty ring box with another note.

A promise for my bride.

I see the morning sun glint off my right ring finger where a silver circle now sets. It’s a silver ring of two bands, interwoven with each band circling around and through each other, as if in an eternal dance.

I’m smiling to myself. I don’t feel different. I just feel cherished. I dress, giving up on trying to get any wrinkles out of my clothes. I decide to clean up our rooftop dinner in a little bit after a wash off and pick up the drawing Steve left me. My bracelets start flashing and 3000’s voice starts blaring “Perimeter breach. Perimeter breach.”

I grab and put on my bracelets as I fling open the rooftop door hearing it slam against the siding as it stays open, the sunlight lighting my way as I start to run down the stairs. “3000, compound or cabin?”

“Cabin.” 3000 replies.

I trip halfway down the stairs, flying through the air I cloak my suit as I prepare to land on my hands and right hip……on the floor of my garage workshop.

_Deactivate_ , I think. The drawing Steve left me that morning floats under my workbench.

I look up to see Parker standing by said workbench holding a broken in half accelerator pen in his hands.

I don’t see the others around him as the words, “What did you do?” tumble from my mouth.

Tears are freely flowing down my face now as I scream. “What the fuck did you do?!?!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family, friends and moving on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for teenage pregnancy

“Antonia, what did you make? Where have you been?” Parker is asking me as I stomp out of the garage.

“Get off my property. Now!” Steve, oh God, Steve. I have the broken accelerator in my hand heading to my house. Dum-E and Totes trying to keep up.

“Antonia, you can’t fuck around with this shit!” I turn around, my gauntlet at the ready, fired up and pointing at him.

“Get. The. Fuck. Off. My. Property.” I turn back around going up the ramp to the porch, before opening my front door I turn back around to him. “If I EVER see your face again, I’ll feed you to Umlo myself.” I go inside and slam the door shut.

I place the broken accelerator on the computer console. “3000, analyze.” I command, my hands holding me up on the console. Steve. I have to get back to Steve.

“Module unrepairable.”

I slide down the side of the console, sobbing. No. No. No. My future was just left behind me.

All I can think is why didn’t I think to just leave my fucking bracelets off.

“3000, take me to the beach.” I stand there at the water’s edge, sobbing as the water washes it away into the ocean as my tears fall into the sea.

“You said I didn’t have anything to fear.”

“Antonia, you shouldn’t fear love. It’s something you deserve despite your belief you don’t.”

“I love him so much. I miss him so much. It hurts, 3000.”

“If you don’t ever want your heart to hurt then you should never love but what hurts more is looking back and wondering the what if. You love, Antonia. It’s not a bad thing. Your heart hurts. That’s not a bad thing either. It just means you will keep him with you and that you lived. I already sense a change in you for the better. Let the experiences you had with him stay with you and that eidetic memory of yours. It’s not always a curse.”

“I love him, infinity.”

“Good, remember that.”

I stay at the cabin for two weeks after going back to the compound to get Umlo and Cassie gives me a once over. Noticing I’m two inches taller and a bit more rounder. She tells me I’m a late bloomer, I’m hitting my hormonal growth spurt and should be starting my cycles soon. I speak to no one else. They seem to have gotten the memo. I emailed my dean and started classes back up, just in time for the second half of the Summer semester to start. During the day I try to rebuild the accelerator pen with a “Module Non-Renderable” with each attempt.

I cry every time and night.

I collaborate the security system program protocol to the same as the Avenger bracelets, to taz, shock and knock out any intruders. I also spend the time to actually learn more about my teammates and the lives of the Avengers. That James is Bucky. As in Mrs. McCloud’s Bucky. Steve’s Bucky. There isn’t much other than that in his file.

Huh. Why would Howard Stark need an Interpol officer for a butler?

I learn a lot about myself. That Peter was right. I shut myself off. The Psychology student psychoanalyzes herself.

“Hey 3000. While this is configuring can you pull up Rocket’s file?”

Half an hour later I’m sitting there crying. Oh, my Rocket. No wonder you are the way you are.

“Antonia.”

“I’m okay, 3000. Just amazed at what others can to other living creatures.”

“Perhaps you should have Cassie give you another check-up.”

“I’m not going back there.”

“Just a check up.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Before the end of my second week of solitude I hear a vehicle pull up on the rocky driveway. Going to the door I see Sam Wilson, previously known as The Falcon, stepping up onto the porch. He doesn’t ask to come inside, just sits on the bench. I come back out with some water and sit in daddy’s old rocker. I notice he’s lost weight. I know what he’s about to tell me.

Captain America is dying.

“I know you’re pissed at Parker but I’m to blame, too.”

It’s like a scene my eidetic memory is pulling up. My dad sitting in the same rocker as three people stand around him in various positions on the porch. Leaning against the porch railing. Sitting on the other chair as I watch from the window. I told daddy mother told me to come save him, that and I was getting in the way but mostly I was more curious about seeing his friends he goes to help. They never came to the cabin before.

Sam has cancer. Pancreatic Cancer to be precise. Stage four. He won’t live out the year. He wants to pass the shield to Bucky.

He hesitates. He keeps starring at the silver knotted band on my ring finger.

“It’s your shield. Yours to decide who to pass it to.”

“They were here looking for you because of me.”

I nod, “Go, with your gut, Sam.” I tell him.

We get up and I give him a hug as he gets into his truck. He hugs back a bit tighter.

Instead of going back inside I walk over to my workshop. I find the picture Steve drew of me that last morning and frame it. What would Steve tell me to do? I can hear his voice as clear as if it’s right next to me, whispering in my ear. “Ria, you can only do the best you can with what you’ve been given.”

“I love you, infinity.” I lay my forehead against the glass of the frame. Then I go back to living my life.

I go back to the compound where Parker still comes for Avenger business, our conversations strained but professional. Umlo is reluctant to leave my side. It’s on one of these visits two months since my return when I hear him talking to someone I actually hate more than him at the moment.

“But she could have made an Alternative Timeline. How do you know THIS isn’t one?” Parker is saying.

“She did not. She could not. It is not.”

Feeling me tense beside her, Umlo hunches her shoulder blades and growls. “Shit.” I say, followed by “Just what the fuck do you want?” As I stare at the sudden no more missing Dr. Stephen Strange with the Scarlett Witch beside him.

By the looks of the eye and the Time Stone secure within it around Strange’s neck. I would say Steve’s mission was successful. At the same time the stones were destroyed. This ought to be interesting.

Disappearing these days stands for traveling the multiverse. Which Thanos tore a hole into when he snapped his fingers the second time, wishing to destroy the stones. One of said stones that appeared around Strange’s neck the morning after my daddy’s funeral secured within the newly repaired eye.

I’m standing outside of the compound with Parker and Strange while he tries to explain to Parker just what he’s been doing the past twelve years. Wanda is getting prepped for a new suit and transport device.

“Uh, say what?” Was Parker’s only reply.

“The theory of the Multiverse, Omniverse or even the Meta-Verse are actually Universes that compromise the whole of….”

I cut Strange of. “Don’t be a cryptic asshole.” I tell him.

Looking over at Parker I say, “Parallel Universes.” I cross my arms leaning back against the wall of the compound, trying not to smirk as Strange keeps inching away from Umlo every time she swings at his cape.

“So, basically my dad died saving this Universe so Thanos can fuck up the entire physical realm of existence. Great.”

“Actually, not so great.”

I quirk an eyebrow at Strange. “We really need to talk about the meaning of cryptic asshole.”

Strange looks a little ashen when he tells us, “Thanos did more than tear a hole in the multiverse, he…..created something. A planet eater by the name of Galactus. He was a normal man space traveling in his Universe. When Thanos destroyed the stones it created what scientists call here a Big Bang and completely rebuilt his Universe, along with him. He also altered a majority of the human DNA on the planet to create beings with powers.”

“So, mutants and a giant living black hole.” I say. “We need to contact the F4.”

“F4?” Strange asks.

“The Fantastic Four. They used to work for NASA. They stay under the radar in New York where the Green Goblin has found a friend named Doom. Dr. Reed, his wife Susan Storm, her brother Johnny and Thing.”

“There’s a Thing now? Doom? Victor Von Doom?”

“Picture Hulk but orange and a rock.” Parker adds.

“You know Doom?” I ask him. He just tilts his head to the side.

“Once again, working on that cryptic asshole thing. On a scale of Green Goblin to Thanos, just how much of a threat is this Galactus?” I ask pinching my nose. Am I too young for an ulcer?

“He makes Thanos look like a Labrador puppy.” Strange deadpans.

“Oh.” Was all I could get out.

I wait two beats then proceed to bend over, vomit on Strange’s shoes and pass out. I hear Strange say “Well, I didn’t see this part” before my vision goes completely black and Parker catches me.

Cassie is taking my temperature as I’m laying on one of the beds in the medical bay.

“You’ve lost weight since you got back and grown another inch.” Which isn’t a lie, my clothes are extra baggy on me the past few weeks.

“I haven’t been hungry, my stomach has been acting weird.”

“Are you letting classes stress you?”

No, I’m letting the fact I can’t find a way back to Steve stress me.

“No.” Is all I reply.

“Have your cycles started yet?” I wince as she pushes on my pelvis.

“Not yet. I’m telling you, Cassie. Bad plumbing.”

“I’m telling you, Antonia. Late bloomer. How long have you been having pelvic pain?”

Shit. She caught that wince.

“About two weeks.”

“Huh. You should have started by now. Let’s see what’s going on down there.”

She asks me to lift my shirt and lower my yoga pants, applying a cold gel to my pelvic area.

She twirls the wand around then stops cold. Looks at me, looks at the screen, then looks at me again.

“Hey, Antonia. When you first got back and I gave you a physical you told me everything, right?”

“Of course.”

She puckers her lips looking at the screen, then back at me. Turning the screen around, she says “You sure ‘bout that?” And with a flick of a button a sudden thump, thump repeating over and over again fills the room and she points to a little blip on the screen.

Shit.

“Have you had…?”

“July 4th.” I automatically reply.

“But you got back the 5th ……… oh. Well, Okay then.”

She does blood work. Checks for STDs. A pelvic exam.

I don’t tell her he was a virgin, too.

I’m six weeks pregnant. As Cassie explains it apparently Mr. I’m not a Super Soldier yet little swimmers liked it in there so much they hung out until my body decided to ovulate for the first time. Then add on implantation time. I don’t tell her who my baby daddy is.

I’m going to have a baby in April.

I’m going to have Steve’s baby in April.

“And he won’t be here to meet the little blip on the screen.” I accidentally say out loud, rubbing the ring on my finger.

Cassie grabs me in a tight hug as I promptly burst into tears.

I walk out onto the sun deck. “You knew I was pregnant didn’t you, 3000?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t feel the need to share. A heads up would have been nice.”

“You needed what I couldn’t give you when you found out.”

“What’s that?”

“Human comfort and to be here with your family.”

I’m leaning propped up on my elbows against the railing of the sun deck playing with the ring on my finger when I hear footsteps, I know those footsteps.

“What, no lecture on getting knocked up at fifteen?” I ask Peter.

“No.”

“I found someone my own age.”

“I’m glad.”

“And I fell in love with him.”

“Ginny, did you have the love story of a lifetime?”

“I did and he was taken from me.”

I rest my head on Peter’s shoulder as I start sobbing. “Then that’s all I care about. Everything else will take care of itself.” He says kissing my forehead as he wraps his arm around me, pulling me in close to his side.

“Peter.” I say after I’ve completely soaked his shirt. He came prepared with tissues. If I had a big brother, well, actually I have a few of them. I have Steve to thank for that realization.

“Yeah?”

“How come you never told me your mother died?”

So, he tells me about his mom, a man named Yondu that taught him blood does not a father make, an asshole named Ego and how he became Starlord. Every time he mentions Gamora though, he says “My Gamora” and I wonder about the one down in the training room with her sister.

Rhodey, who strangely took the news of my pregnancy without so much as a flinch, a blink of an eye, or even the least big surprised by it, is standing at the kitchen counter watching me make a sandwich. It’s been two weeks since I found out about my little blip and I suddenly have the appetite of a starving hyena. Every two hours. On the dot.

I’m piling corn beef high with red onions, pepper jack cheese and chocolate sauce on sourdough bread. I still haven’t told anyone who the father of the baby is. I drop a nice size piece of corn beef on the floor for Umlo.

I’m about to take a bite of my sandwich when Rhodey clears his throat. “So, about the baby…”

“I’m not getting an abortion.” I interrupt him putting the sandwich down.

Rocket jumps up onto one of the stools. “I tried telling them you weren’t the one to do this.” He pushes a box across the counter towards me.

A box of…….condoms. “For future reference. No glove, no love.” Then jumps down mumbling about how hard was that.

“It’s a little late but we all, um, we kinda dropped the ball on that one.” Rhodey is saying as I pick my sandwich back up taking an enormous bite. Trying not to laugh at the look on his face. “How can you eat that?” He asks.

Cassie is checking the little blip telling me how my body will change. Then she sits down on a stool and tells me about my blood. The Palladium that daddy used to power the arc reactor. Which altered his DNA, which in turn altered mine, plus other inconsistent factors in my DNA sequence she couldn’t quit get a grip on.Even after consulting Bruce. The reason why I was a late bloomer. It slows down our aging process and made me too smart for my own good. If not for the stones, daddy would have lived well past 100.

Things 3000 told me as soon as we were DNA and neuro connected.

I’m sitting at the computer console doing my coursework with Bruce Banner’s file open on a 3D screen in front of me. I learn about his research in gamma radiation. How he became The Hulk but also why he has a black arm and scar halfway up his neck. The infinity stones are gamma powered. I finish my coursework and open another screen. “Hey, 3000. Tell me more about gamma radiation.”

It’s a Wednesday when I approach Wanda. She’s in the training room. She’s kept to herself mostly since returning with Strange but has found a nice camaraderie with Cassie and Lila. It’s as if she wants to stay away as much as possible from the older Avengers. From her file I found out she was The Vision’s lover before he died and she was dusted at the age of eighteen. She came back. He didn’t, being yet another casualty of Thanos. I’d want a twelve year getaway as well. Then again running from reality instead of facing it can be harder. Especially with the power she holds.

What happened to her twin brother is still a mystery, disappearing when they were both fourteen after being kidnapped at the age of four and experimented on by Hydra for a decade. Also known as the Ultron Era in Avengers history.

“You should be careful in here, little one. Both little ones.” She says in her heavy Romanian accent.

“I actually would like to ask a favor.”

“I know nothing of pregnancy nor babies.”

“No, no. I, um. What do you know about make-up?”

With one question I end up spending the day with Cassie, Lila and Wanda declaring it “Girl’s Day Out” to the guys getting tips on natural looking make-up, clothes and with a promise not to mess with the length I let a pair of scissors that I am not wielding near my hair. I get a hair cut plus treatment that makes my long hair shine and softens my curls even more.

I’m at home sitting at the computer console working on a small project when 3000 asks “Has Cassie checked our little blip?”

“3000, you‘re there when she does.”

“You’ll have her check again in a few days?”

“3000, you sound like a nervous first time dad.”

“But you’ll have her check?”

“Of course.”

I’m entering my second trimester when Bucky comes out on the sun deck, his back against the railing, his arms and ankles crossed. I have my eyes closed, resting with my hand on my tiny bump, my hair in a ponytail. My yoga pants pulled down, sunning my belly, soaking in some Vitamin D. Umlo has her head right under our little blip. Her new favorite thing to do besides follow me around like a guard dog. Or, well, panther. When Rhodey isn’t. Or 3000 isn’t asking if I’ve had Cassie do a checkup.

“Hello, Bucky.” I say before I open my eyes. Sam passed the shield to him when I first got back to the compound. He insisted on full length sleeves and gloves when Shuri transformed his uniform bracelet to the brighter colors of Captain America from the light colors of the White Wolf. So, basically a replica of his everyday clothing and old uniform.

One day while getting some little light blip exercise I overheard a very strange broken conversation between the two as Bucky pushed Sam out on the grounds of the compound getting him some fresh air. Something about how so far they’re pitching a no hitter and in the ninth ending going into extra innings. I listened as Sam asked if Bucky knew with a reply of “if I did I would have told……. to Fuck off. I knew about a… but then he always called…… around us until we found out about….after the… and…... Did he tell you about…?”

I just saw Sam shake his head no and say “I knew what you knew. He never said anything about….. I think maybe they wanted to……. Maybe that’s why she left so much and for so long.”

“Why isn’t he here then?”

“I don’t know Bucky, it would be hard to explain a thirty……….. Plus, the dumbass entrusted her to our dumbasses.”

“He did say keep an extra eye on her around now. Then again he said that about Thanksgiving when…… three.”

“Maybe he did tell us in his own way.” Sam said quietly.”She has……. We’re smart. He was hoping we’d figure it out.”

Bucky pushed Sam farther away out of my hearing in the wheelchair after that. Still haven’t figured it out. Sam waved it off as a Natasha thing with an odd but silent look from Clint.

Then again I also put two different colored sneakers on last week. Pregnancy brain Cassie called it. Even geniuses with high IQs aren’t immune to it.

“How did you know?” I hear a hint of startled in his voice.

“Your right leg makes a scratching noise when you walk. Plus, I decided to give a shit and learn about the people I grew up with. Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Yeah. Steve had that effect on people. I need to apologize to you.”

I snap my head up.

“It was Parker that broke the pen but I was the one that busted the doors in.”

I lay my head back against the glider cushion. Tears forming in my eyes.

“I know what a dame in the 1930’s dressed like. I also know that’s his grandmother’s wedding ring.” He looks down at the ground then back up at me. “I used to hate you. My gran. She went on and on about this Maria chick. He was a mess when I got back. Found him one day sitting by the washing tub that had been tore all to hell. He never told me the two of you…..well, he never told me anything about you but by the way my gran talked I figured you were friends but not. Well, not doing something that would result in a baby. I couldn’t get him to go out on a date for almost a decade, then it was all about joining the army, then he got the serum and met…”

“It’s okay. I know about Peggy.” I watched the films of his time in combat. Her picture in the compass I bought him. He moved on. I left him. I don’t blame him. He loved before he sacrificed himself in a typical Steve move.

Bucky nods his head. “You were going to stay, weren’t you?”

I look down at my little blip. “Yeah, I was going to stay,” there’s a tremble in my voice.

“And we took you away from him. From each other.”

“You couldn’t have known, Bucky.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t have known. I miss being called that. What else did you learn about James Buchanan Barnes and why a guy born in 1917 is still kicking looking like he hasn’t aged all that much?”

“You were in the 107th , Sergeant. Presumed dead. Born and raised in Brooklyn. Anything else I need to know is your story to tell. Besides, 3000 couldn’t find much on you. Your file only covered the basics. Anything else on you is non existent. If you want me to know, you’ll tell me.”

I feel a little flutter against my hand.

“Bucky!” I reach out for his left hand, he quickly gives me his right. I place it against my bump. He gives me a quizzical look. “Just wait.” I say and once again a little flutter.

He looks in awe. “I better be Uncle Bucky.”

I just smile a mega watt smile at him. “You love him.”

“With everything I am or will ever be. Have you ever been in love, Bucky?”

He leaves his hand on my bump. “I was. Still am. Called her my firecracker.”

“You said was? During the Decimation or the battle?”

“Thanos had many casualties during the Decimation. Bastard. Hurts worse when you can’t say goodbye but you know that. On a lot of fronts.”

“That he did. I’m sorry. Being pulled away from Steve hurt. Even though I know he was with you, even not knowing where he is now gives me hope. Daddy dying even gives me hope. Hope that he and your firecracker are out there in the Universe giving it hell. I’m sure she is a brave and noble woman. You know the body may go away but Love that is the one thing that never dies.”

“As the mother of his child, you deserve to know why he isn’t here.”

I tense. “Did he die?” I choke out. “I remember him at daddy’s funeral. He was with the lady that came to talk to me but I never learned her name. Only time I ever saw her. She’s not in any files either. I figured she was another you. I’ve learned not to question with this bunch. Go with the flow as daddy would say.”

“No. She was someone special to us all. Still is. Real bad ass. Can’t wait for you to meet her someday. She actually told me the same thing you just did. Gave me hope to keep going. So. You see after your father’s funeral someone had to return the Infinity Stones. You know about the stones, right?”

“Enough.”

“Steve took that mission. It was early morning, the day after the funeral, Bruce had set up an abbreviated version of a particle accelerator. He said he wanted to go it alone. We had a talk the day beforehand about….someone, about a decision he needed to make. When Bruce went to bring him back he didn’t come up on the platform. He had flown past his last mission date, his last time stamp. We found him on a bench overlooking the water. He was an old man.”

“That’s how Sam got the shield.” I state.

Bucky nods. “We talked for a bit then he said he had to get back and walked away. When we followed him he had just vanished.”

“Was Bruce able to track his last landing from the platform?”

“Yeah. It was the 1940’s.”

I nod. He went back to 1945, to Peggy. Which is odd because her S.H.I.E.L.D. records state she married Daniel Sousa in February 1946, that died in 1958, with two children. Harriet Sousa born October 1946, son Michael Sousa born in October 1947. Which would make sense to have as a cover because you can’t go around saying you’re married to a guy that was declared dead after crashing a plane full of Hydra’s bombs.

“Did he say he was happy.”

“Sam said he told him his life is beautiful.”

“That’s all that matters. Bucky, about your gran…”

“She died in 1937. Peacefully in her sleep.”

I look down when I say, “I really liked her and miss her. His mom, did she suffer long before she….?”

“No”

“You know. It annoyed me, how hard he worked and how much everyone underestimated him. I hope you didn’t.”

“Antonia.” I look up at Bucky. “Thank you for loving them both.” He gives my bump a little rub and kisses the top of my head, running his finger over the silver ring.

A piece of folded up paper falls out of his pocket, unnoticed, as he goes to,leave. I pick it up, looking at it. It’s worn. Well read and opened constantly. It’s a list of cities and places the world over.

“Bucky.” I call him back. He smiles down at it. Another mystery that I will let him tell me when he’s ready but I have a felling by the look on his face it has to do with his lobe, his firecracker.

“You know you should look in the mirror more often. See how beautiful you are. I can tell why Steve fell for you. Not just looks either.” Then he leaves me and Umlo alone to finish our nap.

Peggy Carter can have his past. I rub my fluttering little bump. I get his future.

That night at the cabin before going to bed I take Steve’s ring off my finger and put it on a long silver chain around my neck.

On November 1st I watch Clint Barton walk his eight month pregnant daughter down the aisle to marry Matt Murdock at their family farm. I’m not able to stop the what ifs passing through my mind.

I haven’t seen Parker since the day Strange came to the compound. Okay, moved into the compound. He doesn’t come around anymore either. Staying in New York with MJ. It’s late November, Cassie is concerned the little blip isn’t gaining much weight which is making Rhodey fidgety but I’m still on track. I decided not to find out the sex. I want it to be a surprise. One last surprise gift from Steve.

The compound’s alert system is going off. An Avenger is in danger. Parker is in danger. The computer consoles showing the Green Goblin is kicking his ass “Hey, Captain America.” I yell as I look over Maria’s shoulder. “Our friendly neighborhood SpiderMan needs back-up.”

I’m by his bedside when Parker wakes up. “So, we don’t check in anymore?”

He has two broken ribs and a concussion.

“Antonia?”

“Avoiding, Parker.”

“You’re like taller. Are you wearing make-up? Your hair looks pretty. Not that it always hasn’t but you changed it. Still long as……Holy FUCK, YOU’RE PREGNANT!”

“5’ 5”. Wanda and the girls taught me the benefits of girls day out and, well, yes. Why didn’t you tell me about May dying?”

“You called MJ?”

“Well, I figured your wife would like to know you’re okay.”

“After, well, I didn’t think you wanted me around.”

“Yeah, well, when I went on my little vaycay someone taught me forgiveness is life changing.”

“Is that the same someone who…..” He looks at my belly.

“Yes, it is. Call MJ. Thanksgiving is here this year and I expect everyone to attend or I’ll activate all the tasers on your bracelets.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what families do, ya dummy.”

Thanksgiving this year is loud, noisy and everything a family should be. I can hear Fury, Maria, and Coulson talk about old times. Clint Barton brings his wife, Cooper and Nathaniel unable to attend. Scott Lang comes with his wife, Hope. We laugh at Sam’s stories about Bucky, which he takes like a good sport and friend. We let Sam do the majority of the talking and story telling. Everyone takes turns feeling the little blip kick telling our little baby I’m your aunt or uncle. Sam took the longest, whispering Steve loves you to the little bump.

I look at him surprised, “Old and dying, not stupid,” is his reply one finger tugging on the chain that holds Steve’s ring, his other finger against his lips. My secret is safe with him.

Parker and I talk about daddy. That the reason he freaked out on me that day in the garage was because it brought back…..well, he couldn’t finish the rest. I get the picture.

“I saw the pen, I knew what it was. It looked just like the time heist gps and particle accelerator E.D.I.T.H. pulled up. I, I wanted to know. What they looked like.” He starts getting teary eyed. “God Morgan when I saw that pen I was a sixteen year old kid again watching him burnt and his eyes so vacant. I loved him so much and he was just gone and while he was sitting there dying all I could see were the things he wouldn’t be there for anymore. I saw that pen and I just snapped, so I snapped it.” He leans over and cries on my bump. “I’m so sorry little blip. Uncle Parker is so sorry. It just hurt so much losing him. It was like losing my father and Uncle all over again. And I did the same thing to you.” Tears cloud my eyes as I run my fingers through Parker’s hair.

“A wise man once told me you can clean up anyone’s mess, it’s how you do it that matters.” I say to him.

Parker sniffles, his ear against my bump. “Sounds like a smart guy. What happened to him?”

“He knocked me up.” I say grinning down at Parker.

Rocket told me whoever knocked me up must have been special, I’m more open, I don’t shut anyone out anymore. I’m softer.

“It’s a good thing, kiddo.” He tells me jumping off his chair after patting my shoulder. He walks away then turns back around, laying his cheek against little blip. “It’s a very good thing.”

We meet again for Christmas, everyone cooks. Laughs. We fuss over a newborn Matthew. Rhodey fusses over me. Enjoy each other. We even exchange small yet meaningful gifts. I take Bruce aside and present him with an oversized bracelet.

“I told you I wanted no part in Avenger activities outside consulting.”

“Bruce, just put it on.” He gives a huff as he goes to put the bracelet on his good arm.

“No,” I stop him. “The other.”

He looks at me skeptically then latches the bracelet to the black scarred arm and watches as black fingertips turn green. Up into his hand, up his arm and finally his neck. He has tears in his eyes as he wriggles his fingers. “It doesn’t hurt.” He whispers.

“It’s DPA. I’ve been working on it for a few months.” A crowd has gathered around now.

“DPA.” Clint tenses.

“Diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid.” Bruce answers with a smile.

“I just had to find the right ratio.” I smile up at him.

He reaches over to hug me but stops himself, patting me on the head instead. “I….”

I lean against Bruce. “I know. I know.” I miss him murmur “she told me.” “Antonia.”

“Yeah, Bruce?”

“Me being distant, not being there while you were growing up. It hasn’t been or was it ever about you. It’s just…”

“From what I know it was a traumatic day. Hell, Natasha moved half a world away.”

He let’s out a murmured “Yeah,” with his head bowed. “I had something I needed to do. More soul searching. I had a purpose once, I had to find my purpose again. A friend helped me figure that out. Told me where I could find it. I didn’t believe her. Thank you, for helping me find that purpose again.”

“I get it Bruce. You were family then, you’re family now. You’re here now. Your help has been priceless.”

“Oh, Antonia. If only you knew how much this is all you. Bringing us all back together. I miss him. You’re so much like him but you’re still you and that you is very special. I love you kiddo.”

“I love you too, Uncle Bruce.”

“Antonia, have you checked in with Cassie about little blip today?”

“Yes, dad.” I say jokingly. “She said everything looks good.”

3000 lets out a quiet. “Okay.”

I stop by Sam’s room before the drive back to the cabin. I haven’t risked using transport since finding out about little blip.

He’s laying on a lounge chair on his balcony watching as the sun begins to set. “I tried, you know.” I say to him. “To find…”

He doesn’t turn around but I go sit next to him. He looks tired. Done. I cover him with a throw.

“You can’t save everyone, baby girl. No matter how hard you try. When it’s your time, it’s your time.”

I kiss his cheek and tell him “Thank you for being my Uncle Sam.”

When I get into my car, Umlo slowly trotting in full of Turkey and other treats to sprawl out in the backseat, I find an envelope on the passenger car seat. In Sam’s handwriting is written “To Antonia, never forget.”

Inside are two old black and white pictures of me and Steve at Coney Island. That night I have 3000 scan and reprint them. Telling him to leave them black and white when he asks if I want them in color. I find frames and hang them beside the drawing Steve made of me, I put the original copies in the safe, finding the very first drawing Steve made of me at the sink on that first day. I frame and hang it as well.

Three days later we bury Sam Wilson in Arlington National Cemetery.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even when you win, you lose because death is inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for death of a child, attempted sexual assault and graphic depictions of violence during war

I ring in the New Year with Dum-E, Totes, Umlo and my little blip, looking at the framed pictures of Steve and I smiling at Coney Island.

I wake up on my birthday tired and cranky around four. Little blip was not a happy camper last night. The drive back and forth to the compound is starting to get to me. My lower back hurts like fuck. My nipples keep leaking and my boobs ache. I’m just in a down right bitchy mood. I contemplate not going to the compound but today of all days I don’t want to be alone.

It’s THE DAY. Mother died a year ago today and I don’t want to be alone. Plus, Peter and the Guardians are insistent I come today. If they’re setting up a surprise birthday party, Peter gets the first dirty diaper.

Strange “Would it be so hard to call me doctor” is there.

I sit at the console starting at six monitoring for any Doom, Goblin and now we got some weird guy named Samuel Sterns that likes to call himself The Leader. Bruce took one look at the guy and said “fuck Ross” before walking off. Apparently there is history there. A history that involves Ross trying to get a sample of Hulk blood to create a super soldier army and using Sterns to manipulate Bruce into thinking he was helping him but creating The Abomination instead. So, yeah. “Fuck Ross.” Who looks like he hasn’t aged a year since 2008. Which is also the year OsCorp’s stocks went up. There are no such things as coincidences.

Umlo is uncharacteristically fidgety, pacing and pawing at my leg. Rhodey is as attentive as ever.

”Antonia, perhaps you should have Cassie give you a check-up?” 3000 has a weird tone in his voice. The last time I heard that kind of tone was when F.R.I.D.A.Y. told me to go back to the cabin the day daddy died.

”3000, something going on?”

”Antonia, why did 3000 send out an emergency medical alert to you?” Cassie asks power walking into the room.

My lower back is killing me like it’s being twisted so I get up to answer her and feel a rush of liquid run down my thighs. I look down to see a puddle of tinted pink water under me.

“Shit”

I hear Cassie get on the coms to Lila to prepare the medical bay as Peter and Parker come rushing in the room. The last thing I see is Rocket running on all fours towards me while Strange catches me before everything goes black.

Lila is trying to keep Peter, Parker and everyone else out of the room while Cassie is trying to stop labor. I can hear Umlo growling outside the doors. “I’m only 25 weeks, Cassie.”

“I know sweetheart. We’re going to do everything we can to keep little blip in you for just a few more weeks. I just need you to stay calm.”

Nothing is working, the drugs I’ve been given. It’s too late, I’m fully dilated. It’s been twelve hours. I have to deliver little blip. Rocket has snuck into the room. Cassie yells at him to get out. He replies she’ll have to kill him and stuff him first. He holds my hand as I push again and again until Cassie proclaims I have a little girl. She’s not crying. Why isn’t she crying? Cassie calls for Lila and they both work on her, intubate her and put her in an incubator. Cassie comes back to finish post delivery duties while Lila wheels little blip into another room, Rhodey hot on her heels.

I’m sitting beside my baby. She’s thirty minutes old. She has a little tuff of blonde hair, pink lips and looks exactly like her daddy. Her lungs and heart aren’t fully developed as well as her brain stem. Cassie apologies over and over that she did not see that on any of the ultrasounds.

Umlo is laying at my feet. Peter, Parker and Bucky are standing in the open door. Rhodey is standing behind me with an unreadable face, arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m her mother.”

“Antonia…” Peter just sounds defeated.

“No, I’m a parent now. I get it. I get why daddy did what he did. Why mother…..why she fought herself so hard. I get it.”

I look over at Peter, Parker and Bucky. “Would you set up the shade over the sun deck, please? And could someone call Murdock?”

“I already did.” Bucky says quietly. “He’ll be here shortly with Father Jordan. I figured you’d want her baptized.”

“Antonia…” Cassie starts.

“I’m her mother and her parent. And sometimes the best thing a parent can do for their child, the person they love, is let them go.”

Umlo and Rocket follow me on each side as I slowly carry my baby girl to the sun deck. The sun is starting to set and there’s an orange glow in the sky. It seems like everyone is there. I can feel them behind me. Clint Barton comes out onto the deck, puts his hand on my shoulder. “I hear we have another little girl in the family.” He crouches down in front of me and looks at her tiny little face and tenses. He stands up, kisses my forehead and grabs onto the railing for dear life. I miss him saying “Dear God, why didn’t you tell me then Steve.”

T’Challa comes and kneels before “his little princess.” I can hear Shuri sniffling behind me. Okoye telling her “she needs your strength.”

“What shall we call this little one?” Father Jordan asks.

“Brooklyn.” I say. “Brooklyn Sarah Rogers.” If anyone acts surprised or shocked, they hide it well.

I watch as Father Jordan baptizes her and then I start talking to her, hushed quiet tones, keeping my voice steady and strong. My little Brooklyn is not going to hear one tremble in her mommy’s voice while she is alive and I tell her about how I met her daddy. Our time together. How we read to each other. Could talk for hours about anything, everything and nothing. About our trip to Coney Island. What a stubborn Irish idiot he is at which I hear Bucky, Bruce and Clint laugh like it brought back a memory. How many firsts he gave me. That he may not be here to hold her but he loves her, so very much. That she was made from love.

Umlo lays her head in my lap. I run my finger along Brooklyn’s soft cheek and tell her how her daddy liked to sing to me, a song that my own daddy sang to me once that he heard from his Guardian Angel. She lifts her little arm from the blanket around her and grabs hold of my finger so I start to sing to her.

“Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

Lay down your head and I’ll sing you a lullaby

Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay”

I don’t see Peter double over with a mumbled “Oh My God” or Scott’s and Hope’s faces ashen. Or Parker fall backwards landing on his bottom. I don’t even see as the people around me that were there when my father died, tense and still. I just keep singing to my baby. Everyone tense and startled except Clint, Bruce, Rhodey, Nebula, Strange, Bucky, T’Challa and Rocket as they take in the moment. Even Fury is leaning against the railing watching unfazed.

“And I’ll sing you to sleep and I’ll sing you tomorrow

Bless you with love for the road that you go

May you sail far to the far fields of fortune

With diamonds and pearls at your feet

And may you need never to banish misfortune

May you find kindness in all that you meet

May there always be angels to watch over you

To guide you each step of the way

To guard you and keep you safe from all harm

Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

May you bring love and may you bring happiness

Be loved in return to the end of your days

Now fall off asleep, I’m not meaning to keep you

I’ll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay

May there always be angels to watch over you

To guide you each step of the way

To guard you and keep you safe from all harm

Loo-li, loo-li, Lao-lay, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay”

I bend my head over and kiss her sweet little forehead as the sun is almost fully set.

“It’s okay baby, my little Brooklyn, you can go now. Tell papa I love him 3000 when you see him, he’s waiting for you, so is your grandma and Uncle Happy. Mommy and daddy love you.” And with that, her little hand lets go of my finger and her arm falls to her chest as Umlo puts her paw on my leg and whimpers a panthers cry with her head buried in my lap.

Cassie waits a few minutes and just lets me rock her little body then goes to take her. We talked before as Lila and Cassie were unhooking the machines and removing tubes that I want her cremated.

Bucky stops Cassie. “I got it.” He kisses my cheek. “I’ll take good care of her.” He cradles her like a precious treasure as he covers her face with the blanket, nodding at someone on the way out.

“Shuri, take it out of me.”

“Antonia it was not the suit. It was not anything you did.”

“Just take the fucking suit out of me. Take it all out of me.” The tremble I’ve been holding back arrives and I let the tears silently flow down my face.

Rhodey offers to drive me home but I don’t answer, I miss Peter shaking his head and mouthing no at him. I just sit there in the glider, going back and forth, watching the night sky. Umlo, her ever faithful self at my feet. Cassie Lang and Clint Barton along with Bucky come out to the deck but it’s Clint that pulls up a chair and sits in front of me.

“Antonia. Look at me and listen. It’s 2036. Medicine has come a long way but babies, sometimes they just die. It sucks but it happens. It has nothing to do with time travel. Your suit. Or anything you did. You’re not being punished. Your baby was just one of the ones that weren’t meant to live very long. Do you understand me? I’m going to keep repeating myself until you say you understand. Babies die. Your baby died. You didn’t do anything wrong. Babies die. Your baby……”

“My baby died.” I whisper.

“Yeah, baby girl, your baby died. But just imagine her up there with Tony spoiling the ever loving crap outta her.”

A laugh bubbles out of me. “He SO is.” My face crumbles. “She died. Oh, Steve, our baby girl died.” 

Clint pulls me into his lap as I sob. Bucky leans back against the door frame, his head back looking up. Fists clenched. Now I know why Cassie brought Clint. He knew Steve, plus sometimes you need a dad. Even if he’s someone else’s.

I spend the night at the compound in a room I never use and have 3000 order a light pink rose bush to be delivered to the cabin the next day. He does not reply. As I’m falling asleep, Umlo at the end of my bed and not feeling my little blip moving around, 3000 speaks for the first time since Brooklyn’s birth and death.

“Antonia.”

“Yes, 3000.”

“Your Brooklyn is beautiful and I love you.”

Is.

Because even death can’t stop love or beauty.

And I have nothing left of Steve but love.

“Did you know?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you kept on me about seeing Cassie?”

“Yes. I have been closely monitoring her as well. It was hard not to slip and tell you the sex.”

“Did you know she was going to die?”

“No. I was hoping with modern medicine and with more time. No. Or maybe I did but I fooled myself into thinking she wouldn’t. I may be an A.I. but I stil….”

“You act more human than most humans, 3000.”

“Do you hate me? Want me gone?”

“No. On both accounts. You’re my family.”

“I’m so sorry I failed you both.”

“You didn’t fail us. Do you know…..do you know why she…?”

“Yes. It’s not your fault. If I tell you you’ll blame yourself.”

“Tell me, 3000.”

“You’re altered DNA passed on from the Stark DNA caused defects in her development.”

“Howard didn’t have any anomalies but dad was born okay. So was I. It had nothing to do with the Palladium mixed in, did it?”

“No, but the anomalies in your DNA. Antonia. Pepper and Tony’s DNA mixed when they had you.”

“Just say it, 3000. Daddy was the sperm donor, mother the egg. That’s why I developed normally. So, if I ever get pregnant it’ll happen again.”

“Yes.”

So, no babies or children in my future. I’m truly the last Stark. That’s okay. I have my found family and honestly I don’t want any children unless they’re Steve’s anyway.

Rhodey offers to drive me home the next day. He’s driving slower than usual. I want to tell him I’m not glass and won’t break when I see Peter’s truck in the driveway when we pull up along with a soft “fuck it” from Rhodey.

Ah, that’s why he was driving so slow. I see Peter’s face turn pale white when he sees us pull in. Him and Drax are carrying a changing table.

I get out. Rocket is pulling on a hand carved wooden old fashioned baby rocking bassinet.

“It was supposed to be a birthday gift….” Peter starts.

Oh, my thoughtful little family. That’s why they were so pushy about me being at the compound yesterday. They were setting up a nursery as my birthday present.

“We were going to donate it. Try to get it cleared out before you got back.” Peter is saying.

I bend down and run my hand over the wood of the bassinet.

“Rocket, did you make this?” He looks down, kicking his foot back and forth.

“Yeah.” He mumbles.

“Its gorgeous. Put it back. Donate the rest.” I say then walk into my home. Rhodey and Rocket behind me with the wood carved gift. I stop just inside the door not looking back, “and Peter, everyone, thank you. For doing both.”

I bury my baby girl’s ashes later that day after everyone is gone under a light pink rose bush overlooking the lake with a plaque that says “Brooklyn Sarah Rogers January 9th ♾” 

I kiss my fingers then the plaque. “We love you and tell papa I love him 3000 as much as you can for me.” Umlo licks my hand.

“3000.”

“Yes, Antonia?”

“Take me to the beach. To the ocean.” To Steve.

I land on a beach on what looks like the east coast of New York. I’m already barefooted from when I buried my baby. I walk to the ocean, up to my ankles and as each wave washes over my feet. I let it all go. I know grief takes time. This will stay with me for my entire life. Just like losing daddy, mother and Happy.

Losing Steve.

But it’s a start.

I’m back at the compound. I kept the suit, knowing I need to blame something instead of facing the fact life…..just happens, as does death. I was starting to go stir crazy at the cabin after only one day. I need to keep my mind busy and the coursework for my classes is too easy. I’m walking towards the kitchen area when I hear Parker ask “Does she know?”

Strange replies with a simple “No.” When I enter they both go quiet. Peter and Rocket are in there too with Rhodey.

I quirk an eyebrow at them. Subtle they are not. “Does she not know what?” I ask.

Parker has his head in the freezer, hiding. He pops out with a tuber ware container.

“I was just wondering why there are individual wrapped leaves of cabbage in plastic wrap in our freezer.”

Okay, Parker. We can play that.

“Actually, I do know. I put them there. They’re to place in my bra to help dry up my milk faster.”

And that ladies and gentlemen is how you get a Sorcerer Supreme, a Web Slinger and a Galaxy traveling Starlord to blush, mumble and run into each other saying at the same time they’re supposed to be somewhere. Next time, tell me fellas. Rhodey just walks past me and kisses my forehead on his way out. “The knuckleheads just finally figured some things out is all.” Rocket says as he passes me, hugging my leg.

Johnny Storm avoids me and making eye contact with me every chance he gets with red rimmed eyes.

On January 13th of 2036, President Ross issues a statement and signs a new Presidential Order. “Due to the high volume of newly mutated humans with highly uncontrollable abilities and the so called Superheroes that claim to protect our nation and the world, I hereby declare all those signed with the Super Hero Registration Act must have tracking devices implanted in their necks by January 18th. Failure to comply will automatically deem you a fugitive and a federal warrant will be issued for your arrest.” He leaves the podium without taking any questions.

I’m sitting at the computers when Scott Lang out of the blue sits down in one of the other chairs and says. “Hey.”

“Mr. Lang. How are you today?”

“Scott, please call me Scott.”

“Okay, Scott.” He’s fidgety. Picking at the side of the table. “I really want to thank you for your help on the quinjets. I’m still looking for a way to by pass you getting tagged. I know you’re leaving tomorrow but….”

“Tomorrow is tomorrow and there is still hope for today.” He smirks at me.

I smile back. “There’s always hope.”

“It’s been nice working with Rocket again.” He’s quiet for a bit, watching me as I watch the computer cross reference Ross’s schedule with Senators, Congressmen and women along with high tech CEO/ company owners. “I did a disservice a long time ago. I trusted the wrong person.”

“T’Challa has been drilling in my head since I was three the keep your friends close but your enemies closer mantra.” I smirk.

“Yeah but he wasn’t an enemy. I thought he was family. I learned too late he wasn’t. Hurt a dear friend because of it. I never got the nerve to tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“That I was proud of her. Still am.” He stands up, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re going to do amazing things. Even when people try to tell you different. Use that stubbornness people may see as a flaw. It’s not. Along with that mind of yours, it’s a weapon.” He kisses the top of my head. “Second chances are precious. The same friend taught me that. Forgave me a grave error. One I still hold with me. One that makes me distant. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not capable of anything. Even bumbling idiots. Don’t ever loose that hope either. No matter how bad it gets.”

On January 17th Rhodey, Clint, Hope and Scott say their good-byes to the compound and it’s tenants. I’m holding their bracelets in my hand. They waited as long they possibly could. Rhodey gives me a hug, pulling back cupping my face as tears flow down both our cheeks. Clint and Scott are crying as well.

“Antonia Maria Potts-Stark, you have no idea how special you are. What you can do, will do. Things that always amaze me and I am so very proud to know you. He is be proud, too.”

“Uncle Rhodey, are you okay?”

“Let’s just say I understand a lot more things now that I didn’t realize before. I think a majority of us do.” He kisses my forehead. Clint and Scott both give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Hope just squeezes my hand, her finger tips linger against mine with parting words of “You’re stronger than you think you are, Antonia Stark. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Fury, Maria and Coulson disappear the same day without a word. 3000 is able to track their bracelets to fifty miles away from the compound, tossed hazardously in the brushes surrounding the area as if to hide them.

On January 20th President Ross holds yet another press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House. I, along with the rest of the compound, watch on the large screens scattered around the main area and about the compound as he speaks. He has a remote device in his hand.

Thor tenses beside me along with Bruce.

“Today marks the one year anniversary of my inauguration. I built my campaign on making this country safer and less hazardous to its citizens. I created the Super Hero Registration Act to ensure that safety but there have been those that have chosen to rebel, to cause upheaval and chaos.”

I watch as Rhodey, Clint Barton and Scott Lang are lead out in prison cuffs around their wrists and ankles, hands behind their backs.

Cassie Lang lets out a cry of “Daddy!” As Murdock holds his wife, Lila, against his side. I exchange a glance with Strange before returning my attention back to the screen. I have the feeling Ross is about to make a very bad move.

“May this be an example to those trying to revolt. That refuse to or even attempt to cooperate with this government.”

All three men are pushed to their knees.

“Do not underestimate what I will do to keep this country in order.” With that final statement, Ross presses a button on the remote in his hand. I can see a red flashing light in each man’s neck and then…..three headless bodies fall forward to the ground.

Cassie and Lila start yelling and crying. Cassie is doubled over, Murdock is barely holding Lila up.

Thor and Bruce are on their knees. Bruce covering his face with two fisted hands cursing the day he didn’t let Ross burn in a helicopter as Thor repeats over and over “Not again,” as he rocks back and forth. Rocket instantly at his side.

“3000, report.” I say calmly. Perhaps a bit too calm.

“Every registered name with a tracking device has been detonated and are deceased. Man, woman and child.”

“What the fuck just happened?” Parker says as he transports into the compound.

“Ross just killed over 100,000 people.” Strange tells him with no emotion in his words, almost as if he knows what this means.

“He just committed genocide.” Parker states unbelieving.

“No,” I say, my face a hard mask, my lips curl in anger “Ross just declared war.”

Lila gets a phone call from her brother an hour later. Laura Barton had a stroke when she saw Clint die. She never wakes up.

I get into it with Strange, asking “Did you know? Did you know Ross was going to do this?”

He just looks at me like a haunted man, doomed to know things that cannot be changed “Yes. I knew. I knew it was Ross’s plan from the beginning. What do you think the Accords were really about? Thanos just delayed the inevitable.”

“This shit? My daddy KILLED HIMSELF for this shit?”

“No, your father sacrificed himself for what’s to come.”

“Your one in 14,000,605 timelines didn’t show you this?”

“This exactly no, but it showed me Ross starting a war along with Galactus and others. Your father died so that Galactus will be defeated. Doomsday is coming, Antonia and that was never preventable but it can be stopped.”

“Just what the hell were you doing for twelve years multiverse jumping then?”

“Someone sent me on a mission to do just that. Even showed me how. To gather as much information as I could on how many multiverses there are and so we could be ready for this.”

“The pretty lady that disappeared.”

“What?

“The day of daddy’s funeral I saw you talking to who I only know as the pretty lady because that’s what I called her. I heard her say you know what to do and you nodded. If she sent you on a mission that means she knew. Why didn’t she warn us, try to stop it?”

“I believe with all that I am she did everything she could to do exactly that.”

“How bad?”

“Even more friends and family will fall but if we do nothing, so will our Earth, our Universe. You think Thanos snapping everyone away causing the Decimation just to recreate a new world would be the worse of it. No. The worse of it is nothing.”

For one brief moment I wonder if Morgan Stark was the one that sent him on that mission then I remember the date on the box. If it was anyone daddy knew, she’d be around my age not the older young lady she had seen. Was it a playmate? Is that where the dreams were coming from?

Oh, daddy. I need more clues.

Lila and Murdock return a week later with Cooper and Nathaniel by their side. It’s Cooper that speaks up. “We want in.”

The next day I find T’Challa sitting at the computer console, twirling a rubber band with both hands as he swivels the chair back and forth.

“My grown-up Antonia.” He says in greeting. “You once asked me if I wanted to be an Avenger but I turned you down stating my country must come first. I must admit my desire to stay out of yet another….”

“I get it. Thanos had that effect on a lot of people. Sometimes you just want peace. I can’t begin to imagine what it was like for everyone.”

T’Challa’s still looking at me with haunted, sad eyes. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m not getting the full story of that day. “In my want of peace I made a grave error. I ask you. Is your offer still valid?”

“T, you’re always welcome here.”

He nods and stands. He holds his arm out for to me to take, “Ross once led me to believe he was an ally during a time of peril in my country. Perhaps over lunch I may tell you about it. Someone special pointed out to me to be careful with him. I heeded their warning although I still let Ross help. They told me about a popular saying of keeping your friends close but your enemies closer. I have told you that many times. I learned during the Accords not everything is what it appears to be. My friend tried to save my father only for him to perish still. I am afraid my want of peace and my trauma as you call it from both my father’s death and Thanos only led me to hinder when I should have been helping. What you have done on your own is amazing. You brought a family together, not just a team. It brings back memories, some painful some happy.” We walk past the open ground floor, past the common area of couches and loungers, out of the opened glass doors to the back veranda. “Our army, is your army.” The compound grounds are filled with warriors of Wakanda, the Dora Milaje Regime, lined up at full attention, Okeye at the forefront. Along with M’Baku and his tribe, the Jabari, and others.

Playtime is over.

It is a quiet run of the mill training day while planning strategy with Bucky when a skinny, British twenty something walks in the door beside Johnny Storm and I freeze.

“I….I, ah, heard you’re looking for powered beings. I can cloak, go invisible. Like Johnny’s sister. I’m very good with computers and building technology. Ross, he killed my parents. My name is….”

“Jarvis. You’re Edwin Jarvis.” Shit. “3000. Can you..?”

Strange appears from a vortex. “Well, you’re finally here.”

I’m at the cabin running diagnostics on the bracelets when Dum-E, followed by his girl Totes, hands me an envelope. A simple “Antonia” in Rhodey’s hand writing is written on the front. Inside is a picture of daddy holding me as a baby and me holding Brooklyn along with a simple note. “I’m sorry, baby girl, I was hoping this go around the Universe would change it’s mind.” I don’t understand his note but I frame the two pictures along with it and add them to my wall.

Strange is in my living room when I walk in. “You could have told me Jarvis was part of this.”

“Wasn’t a hundred percent on that.” He sits on my couch.

“Strange. That’s JARVIS. Howard Stark’s butler Jarvis. If he’s from here. How’d he get THERE?” I plop down next to him.

“That, Antonia. I have no clue on.”

“Anything else your cryptic assholery self wants to share?”

“It’s almost time. That’s all I know. That and for some reason you need to renovate the cabin. It’s supposed to be bigger.”

We sit on the couch, quiet as we contemplate what our lives have become.

“Want a sandwich and maybe give me an idea just how big I need to make it?”

“One of your Italian clubs with that dressing? And I’m not completely sure. At least three times in size. A lot of bedrooms. A guest house. The rest is blocked.”

I’m walking to the kitchen when I say, “You mean the all seeing Sorcerer Supreme does not see all?”

“No,” He says from the couch. “It means something happens to keep me from seeing it.”

The last time I heard that was the story of how Strange became the Supreme and the Ancient one couldn’t see past her death. Neither one of us voice that though.

“Hey Strange. In your vision did you ever see daddy leaving me anything or have you ever heard of a Morgan Stark?”

“I have never seen anything in my visions about a man named Morgan Stark or anyone named Morgan. As for your father leaving you anything, I saw him leave you everything.”

“Actually it’s a female. No, I mean something special. That would be just between us.”

“No, I didn’t see your pregnancy either so I think it was mostly the highlights version. Do you want me to try to find them?”

“No. We got enough crap to deal with. I’m sure whoever it is will turn up. Now I know where you get that cryptic asshole thing from.”

If in the next few weeks I see Strange training Wanda more I don’t take it as a sign of him picking his replacement.

It starts six months later with the arrival of Carol Danvers and a Kree invasion. She stops short when she sees me but a negative shake of the head from Strange keeps her quiet. His cryptic asshole self is rubbing off on other people.

The Kree arrive with Nick Fury, Coulson and Maria Hill.

We watch helpless as the red light goes off in their necks, beheading them in the middle of New York City.

We find out later that day Ross had them taken having them tagged after the assassination of the rest. An explosive tag that even an A.I. with a human brain can’t survive.

They invade three times. Each time the Avengers defend them off.

On my seventeenth birthday, Brooklyn’s first, I get an infinity symbol tattooed over my left breast. Just a small one but I know it’s there.

A month after my seventeenth birthday the Red Hulk appears, tearing through New York like it’s paper machete. Lila gives birth to a baby boy, crying as she names him Clint.

Two months later The Mandarin and the Ten Rings decide to join the party. We’re battling him and Doom when all the sudden my suit shorts out and disappears. A bolt of electricity shot to one of my bracelets. “3000?” No answer.

Von Doom is behind me when he says “Such a pretty girl to hide behind a suit of armor.”

He grabs my hair by my braid before I can finish the round kick I started on him, pulling my head back then. He throws me to the ground as I land on my hands and knees. His foot pushes me down, holding me there as I try to do a worm flip. He grabs my braid again pulling my head back then bashing it into the cement before he flips me over to my back as he crouches above me. He punches me in the face and I see stars, trying not to black out as he does it again and again. I taste blood. My lip is bleeding. I feel him tugging on my cat suit. No, no, no, no.

“Power is everything you little bitch and I will show you I hold all the power. While enjoying myself in the process.” He’s trying to pry my legs apart but he can’t get them to budge which seems to be pissing him off.

I feel his hand on my breast as I try to regain my equilibrium. My ears ringing. My vision blurry. Concussion.

I hear a panther’s growl then a yelp. No, only Steve touches me. He’s undone his pants and is rubbing his cold hard cock against the crouch of my cat suit. I pull together enough strength to do a pelvic thrust. Hard enough to surprise him and throw him backwards. Umlo landing on his chest her face growling as saliva drips from her open mouth onto his metal face mask.

The next thing I see is a blast of magic as Doom disappears through a vortex. I turn around and see Strange, face pale as he takes me in.

“You tell no one.” Umlo limps over, licking my hand. She huffs at Strange. Part grateful for getting rid of Doom, part angry she didn’t get to sink her teeth into his metal throat.

“Antonia.”

“No. One.”

He nods his head in agreement. He averts his eyes from me where I try to keep the torn part of my cat suit up where my breast is exposed. “You need medical attention. The battle is over for now. Would you like a vortex to the compound?”

“No, the cabin.”

“Antonia…very well.” He relents opening a portal for me.

I walk through the vortex, limping along with Umlo.

“Antonia, what happened?” 3000 demands.

I give him no explanation “3000, start the shower. Hot water. Hot as you can get it, please.”

“Antonia…”

“Please, 3000.”

“I’ll let it go, for now.”

I get in the shower, fully clothed. Sitting on the shower bench I pull off my boots. I stand as steam starts to build, wincing as I pull off my cat suit, letting it fall to the wet tile. Pink tinging the water going down the drain as I step under the shower heads and begin to scrub every inch of my skin raw, twice.

I don’t shed a tear. The evil bastard is not worth a single one.

With a towel wrapped around me I apply my healing cream to my face, shoulder and breast. By the time I go back to the compound my wounds will be nonexistent. I look in the mirror at my wet hair, grabbing a pair of scissors from the top cabinet drawer. I bunch my hair together on one side with the scissors at chin length. 

I stand there. Looking at myself in the mirror. The scissors open and against my hair waiting for my fingers to close and make that cut.

Then he’s there. Standing behind me. Just a tad shorter than me. His hands on my shoulders as he kisses my cheek. Then I watch as he tucks one long, lone strand behind my ear. His favorite thing to do before he brushes his fingers through the length of it. “I love your hair, don’t eva cut it. It’ll break my heart. So many dames these days pinning and rolling it to make it look fashionable like everyone else. Not you though. Everything about you is so natural. That’s one of the reasons I love you. You don’t pretend like the other gals to get a fella to notice you. You’re just you. So strong.”

Then his image disappears.

I let go of my hair and put the scissors down. Only I dictate that choice and I want my hair long. I want that memory of Steve brushing it up on the rooftop one night every time I brush it.

I slide a pair of heavy flannel pajama pants and shirt on, along with my robe, feeling the need to have as many coverings on my body as possible. I crawl into bed pulling the covers over my head.

Before I can start letting that bastard win by paralyzing me, Steve’s voice comes to me, crystal clear as if he were in bed behind me, cuddling me . “Always get back up.” He whispers in my ear.

And I do. I get up, changing my clothes to a pair of shorts and a tank top, set the 3D console to program 3000 to not be able to be deprogrammed and the bracelets to handle electric shocks. It takes me until four a.m. but I get it done. As soon as I have the bracelets back on and hooked back up to 3000, I never knew an A.l. with such a dirty mouth vowing to find a way to kill the son of a bitch.

“I’m fine, 3000.”

“He made you bleed. I want him dead.”

“The Avengers will deal with him.”

“One shot, one shot is all I’m asking.”

“Can you just help me finish, please?”

By six I have four new state of the art cat suits made linked to my bracelet with the ability to shock on command.

I’ll show you who has the power, bitch.

We find allies in Shang-Chi, Charles Xavier and Erik; alias Magneto.

It turns out Ross has been taking children since after the snap was undone. Erik does not remember his last name, nor his parents. He does know that Ross killed them in front of him after capturing them coming from the Mexican border, coming back from disappearing for five years. Armies forcing families out of their homes, their only hope of survival was to run to America in hope of asylum. He met Charles shortly after his escape from a border based camp, himself in hiding from Ross after escaping from yet another camp set up in the northern states; Charles himself being taken from his England home with his parents killed. Both Erik, Charles and their families were victims of the dusting. The only reason Charles remembers his family, the dusting even, is because when he awoke his had psychic abilities. Erik woke with the ability to bend metal to his will. He keeps telling Charles to stay out of his head.

It seems Ross has been looking for mutated humans and putting them in camps.

Just when you think Ross has sunk to his lowest, you find out just another sickening piece. Oswald has been helping him. The question is, why kill off so many powered beings then have a stockpile hidden away?

“Experiments. Ross and Oswald are experimenting on them. To make them more powerful.” I say.

“To build an army.” Charles finishes.

The real battle begins in May of 2037. The Leader and Doom have opened the tear in the multiverse and are summoning Galactus while the Red Hulk and the Green Goblin terrorize the city. It wasn’t hard to figure out Ross juiced himself up and became the Red Hulk.

The Mandarin is gleefully helping. Unfortunately, it’s not the Mandarin daddy thought he was. The one daddy talked about was but a vengeful want to be that the Mandarin used as a puppet. He wanted a shot at Iron Man, Thanos just got there first.

We’re at the compound as I’m giving out orders in full Iron Maiden suit up. Cassie in her Stinger uniform stops me with her hand around my forearm after I tell Bishop she’s on Ross. “He killed my father and Hope, too.” She tells me with tears in her eyes.

“He did. He killed a lot of people we all love but Bishop has arrows with a 100% percent accuracy shot. Arrows that explode. Besides, I may need you to grow a few feet.”

“You had me at exploding arrows.” Then we both transport to ground zero.

We’re getting our asses handed to us. Bruce lay on the ground in front of me as I’m panting on my side after he went at it with Red Hulk. Peter has Gamora in his arms as Dooms turns them and Drax to dust with a blast of lightning. I can hear Nebula’s cry over the radio as Rocket flies by in a fighter jet, shooting at him.

Thor returns the favor but it does no harm to Doom. He only returns with a blast to Hulk as he tries to stand, dusting him. The F4 are trying to hold him off as The Human Torch flames around him. Upon seeing Bruce turn to dust Thor lets out an inhuman scream that sends a lightning bolt to Earth, taking out The Mandarin and his allies in one swoop.

I hear a sharp whimper and cry out as Red Hulk bends Umlo in half backwards and throws her down the street.

“3000, Umlo, now.” I transport the where Umlo is laying. “3000, report.”

“Critical. She is bleeding internally, her back is broken and her spinal cord is damaged. Death will be slow and painful.”

“Tell me…” I stop and collect myself. “Tell me the quickest, less painful way to…”

3000 cuts me off. “An electric jolt to her heart with your gauntlet. It will be quick and painless.”

I lay down beside Umlo. One hand on her chest while I rub my other over her head as she lays there whimpering.

“My faithful, loving Umlo. You’ve been nothing but kind and good to me. Let me repay you.” I kiss her forehead and she licks my cheek.

“Good-bye my friend. Guard our little Brooklyn now for me.” I place my hand directly over her heart and command 3000 to activate. With a jolt I watch the light leave her emerald green eyes.

I sit up. “Bishop, Ross.” I say over the coms

“But the arrow you made won’t kill him hulked out.”

“Bishop, I gave you an order.”

“Antonia, you do realize what will happen?”

“Bishop, take the fucking shot.”

And with that final order Kate Bishop fires a special made arrow into the neck of the Red Hulk. A red light blinks as he paws at it and it explodes.

I walk over to Thunderbolt Ross, our President, and watch as the hulk leaves him. He lays there, missing an arm, half his jaw and an eye.

“Death is too merciful for some. You killed our families but you, you get to live.” I turn around and see Kate Bishop behind me looking at Ross laying there groaning. She looks at me. “I can live with that.” She transports back to her spot a top the high rise. With the help of Charles Xavier, The Leader falls next.

Parker has taken care of the Green Goblin. He doesn’t personally kill him but he falls to his death when he misses a turn around a building as SpiderMan chases him.

We have bigger problems though as a 100 foot Galactus appears. “Hey, Stinger. It’s time to grow”

I’m leaning up against a building after taking a hit from Galactus’s hand, holding my side. I don’t need 3000 to tell me I have broken ribs. Strange appears before me from a vortex. He’s been fighting Doom and his dark magic with Magneto trying to hold his metal body off. “Antonia, this is it. We need you to get up and fight for us. You’re it. You’re our one chance to ward of the crisis.”

“Strange, now is not the time to be a cryptic asshole.”

“It’s time Antonia. One in 14,000,605.” And Doom blasts him from his spot atop OsCorp.

“Hey, Magneto.” I yell. “Thought you were on our side here.”

“I am. Doom threw Charles off the the tower. He fell on the 42nd floor landing.”

“Status?”

“Charles isn’t moving. Doom is mine.”

“Do it. Reed, Thor, it’s time to stop playing and melt the bastard. Susan, do it now while he’s occupied.”

Doom ends up with a set of power dampening cuffs on him after knocking out Susan Storm courtesy of one Edwin Jarvis.

“How the hell am I supposed to take down that?” I say looking up at the 100 foot giant, that is currently being attacked by Thor, Human Torch, Carol Danvers and every Avenger on deck. I watch as the Silver Surfer falls from his board to his death below, his body disintegrating. Next I watch Cassie shrink and not get up.

“Am I supposed to answer that or are you talking to yourself again?” 3000 says.

“Not the time.”

“You programmed me.”

“Yeah well, what does it matter?”

I can hear Steve’s voice in my head. “You always stand back up, baby.”

“I’m trying to, Steve. I’m trying so hard to.”

“Antonia, where was Steven Rogers from?” 3000 asks.

“Again, not the time.”

“Antonia.” Okay that sounded way too much like the dad voice.

“Brooklyn.” I answer. A hologram appears before me. Of me rocking and singing to Brooklyn.

“3000. You know she matters.”

“Matter.” I repeat.

“Matter.”

“Anti-matter.”

“Shit!”

“3000, get me and the Silver Surfer’s board to the compound, now.”

It takes me fifteen minutes, that we don’t have, to figure out a way to melt down the silver surfboard into a liquid.

Galactus is done playing and is turning from a man shaped giant into a swirling mass.

I’m done too. There are bodies laying around me. I’m bleeding from a gash on my forehead. My ribs hurt and I think I fractured my tibia.

“3000, helmet. Up the oxygen intake.”

“Antonia, what are you doing?” 3000 asks. Dad tone again.

“It’s time to send this asshole to his own personal hell.”

I fly up, Galactus is now if full gas form, and right into the middle of him.

“3000, find me a spot.”

The wind he’s putting off is like being in the middle of a category 5+ hurricane and a F6 tornado at the same time. My thrusters are overworking. My suit’s alarms going off. My oxygen is running out.

Then 3000, my brilliant 3000, pulls up a data point on my face plate computer and I fire hearing Clint in my head “Aim straight, never miss. You don’t always get a second shot.”

Then I fall.

Strange is holding me up against him. “Where did he go?”

“I sent him to the negative gravity zone.”

“You did it.”

“What exactly?”

“Finished what your father started. What do you want to do with Doom?”

“Take him into custody.”

Strange grabs my arm. “Antonia, I’d be happy to....”

I don’t let him finish that sentence. “Custody. That’s all.” As I walk away Strange says to me “I wouldn’t have been sorry if he had died with the Goblin.”

I turn and look at him. “Then what does that say about us versus them?” He just nods his head as I walk away. Then again, I am the one that made the call to permanently disfigure Ross. What does that say about me?

I’m limping around. Yeah, not fractured tibia but definitely a sprain knee. Right now I really don’t give a shit enough to ask 3000 for a medical report. My family is not moving. I have other priorities.

“3000.” I choke out. “Casualty report.”

In a somber tone 3000 starts naming names.

“Umlo

Black Panther

Scarlett Witch

Bruce Banner

Valkyrie

Daredevil

Silver Surfer

Luke Cage

Jessica Jones

Blade

Iron Heart

Punisher

Iron Fist

Shang-Chi

Peter Quill

Gamora

Mantis

Drax….”

“Stop. Which list is shorter, casualties or survivors?”

“Survivors.”

“Report.”

“SpiderMan

Captain America

F4, Susan Storm has a mild concussion.

Magneto.

Charles Xavier, preliminary reports show a broken back and most likely permanent paralysis.

Kate Bishop

Nebula

Thor

Jarvis

Rocket

Groot, but only a branch that we can regrow.

Strange…”

“Stop. Just....stop.”

“Back to the compound, 3000.” My tibia is not fractured after all but my knee is sprained. With some healing ointment and a few days rest, it will be healed. As for the Spirit of the remaining Avengers, well, time will only tell on the healing part of that.

I expect Lila to retire. She surprises me and asks to stay on with a “Who is going to keep you knuckle heads healthy with no doctor around?” She wants Clint and Michael Jr. at the compound, help make her feel close to Murdock. Cooper steps in and becomes the other Avenger compound doctor full time. Nathaniel takes over as White Wolf and Harley Keener with Lila’s blessing becomes the new Daredevil. Shuri does one last act as the Avenger engineer and makes their bracelets.

Rocket plants one of Groot’s branches in a flower pot and we begin the waiting game.

Thor, much like I was told he did after the Decimation, withdrawals into himself. He had once again lost his people and a King he appointed himself.

The Asgardians were officially extinct. Except for one.

Charles Xavier has a spinal cord injury that even with modern day medicine cannot repair, rendering him paralyzed for life. I remember seeing an old prototype in daddy’s files for helping paralyzed persons walk. It was never built though, the least I can do for Charles and Magneto is try.

I corner Parker in the medical bay, it’s been a long day. He has a concussion and like me a gash on the forehead. “So…” I start, my arms folded as I sit next to him on the gurney.

“Antonia.” Parker sighs.

“Why didn’t you tell me MJ is pregnant?”

“I thought it might be a sensitive subject and wasn’t really sure how to approach it.” He’s blushing with his head down. Peter Parker, thirty years old and sometimes still that sixteen year old that gave me a security disc comes out.

“Lila was like that, keeping Michael away when I was in the room. Then when she got pregnant again.”

“What did you tell her?”

“To get over it. I’m a big girl, Parker. Its been over a year. Life goes on, but she’s always with me. Like daddy is always with us.” I kiss his cheek. “I’m happy for you but if you ever let me send you into a fight like that was with the risk of you dying and me not knowing something as important as that…..we have enough orphans already Parker. Don’t make me kick your ass.” I get up and walk out.

“You know, for someone so tiny you can be very scary in that calm and quiet manner at times.” Parker yells after me.

“I better be fairy God Mother.” I yell back.

Shuri is packing her room up. She has a kingdom to return to. She has handed over the technical and engineering department to Harley and our tech savvy Jarvis.

Jarvis soaks in my explanation of the bracelets like a sponge, even my own and how I put an A.I. on it.

“You’ll come, to his funeral.” Its an unsure statement.

“I’m not sure I should with half the other tribes not wanting him here to begin with that didn’t join the fight and die in it. Plus, I’m sending you back with half an army, half a country, yet no bodies but your brother’s to bury.”

“His death is not on you. Their deaths are not on you. Ross was not only a cancer to this country but to the world.”

“Your brother died in battle with honor. I would not dream of taking that away from him by saying I am at fault. I’ll be there.”

T’Challa is buried next to his father and mother in a service fit for a king. As it ends I pass a black marble statue of a curled up sleeping panther cub. Walking closer I see a plaque with the words “In loving memory of Princess Brooklyn Sarah Rogers.”

“Oh, T’Challa.” I whisper, my hand on the plaque.

Shuri is challenged for her right as Queen, Okoye is behind her. I land in front of them in full Iron Maiden armor. “You challenge her, you challenge me. And let me warn you,” my gauntlets light up, “I’m not in the mood to be fucked with right now.”

I stay for Shuri’s inauguration, watch as a pair of panthers play together, then return home; Pantherless.

After a thorough investigation it is proven President Ross, Secretary of State Oswald, among others were part of a Hydra uprising, including Dr. Henry “Hank” Pym, that died fifteen years ago with his wife in yet another car accident. I thank the stars Hope was no longer alive to learn about this. Half of the Senate and Congress is arrested and put in federal prison along with many corporate CEO’s and corporate owners. Being cleared of any association with Hydra or not knowing of any Hydra activities Vice President Pérez is sworn in.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s late November. We’ve all healed the best we can, physically. The compound is quieter. I’m at the cabin, sitting on a stone bench with a stone path leading to it. Asphodel bushes lining each side of the path. A garden that is too big. A bush for each of the fallen with a plaque of a name in front of each one, including mother, Happy, Sam, Clint, Scott, Hope and Rhodey. I invite the remaining Avengers over for Thanksgiving dinner and to see the garden so our fallen are not forgotten. Lila, Cooper and Nathaniel thank me for including Laura, putting her beside Clint and Matt, although they were buried at the family farm she appreciates the gesture. Cassie is beside Scott and Hope. 

Thor cries and hugs me when he sees the ones for Loki, Valkyrie and the name of each Asgardian lost. He never told me how he died before the dusting but he was his brother and that’s what matters. The others, they have names too and deserve to be remembered.

The same for the lost of Wakanda.

I find Strange on the dock staring out over the lake. “I didn’t die. Wanda died but I didn’t.”

“Strange, cryptic asshole aside, that’s a good thing you didn’t. Pissed about Wanda, though. You did warn me more family would die. I should have been more prepared.”

“Trust me my Antonia. You had us prepared. I mourn for your loss.”

“You saw it when Thanos was coming. Then you had to live it. It’s just as much as your loss. I know how you felt about Wanda.”

“Her heart still belonged to the Vision.”

“Doesn’t make your feelings any less valid.”

“Perhaps it is a good thing I did not die but something is blocking me from seeing what is to come. Not even the time stone will allow me to see it.” For the first time in my life I see fear in his eyes.

I get my mail looking at the hard Manila envelope with a letter from Columbia University inside in the middle of December. They are graduating me, with honors. They cannot challenge me anymore and my expectations of my coursework far exceed that of those of the professors that I can even attempt to learn from. In other words. Take your degree, we can’t teach you anything else.

I stand there, a graduate with a PhD in Psychology but this year there is no auditorium full of family. No King to cheer for me as he pumps his fist. No Peter to say “good job, Ginny.” Just me, standing alone at the end of my driveway.

I’ve never felt more alone.

“I’m here, Antonia. I’m always here.” 3000 reminds me.

“3000, you found the Siberia footage didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

“Antonia…..”

“Have it pulled up on the console before I’m in the house.”

No, no, no. That’s not my Steve. Who is that other person? Show me their face daddy.

“He’s my friend.”

“So was I.”

I cry out, tears streaming down my face, as Steve plunges his shield into daddy’s arc reactor. Daddy covering his face with his arm.

Then daddy yelling after him he doesn’t deserve that shield. Steve throwing it down as he walks away with…..who the fuck is that?

So that’s it.

The fallout and downfall of the Avengers along with daddy’s and Steve’s friendship.

Then another video appears, the same exact fight but this time something is different.

It’s just as bloody and vicious. I still can’t see the other man’s face.

There is something in the after the fight when daddy is looking towards where Steve is walking off with the man.

Then I hear it. The female voice from before along with T’Challa as daddy stands up giving F.R.I.D.A.Y. the command to stop recording and the most devastating, heartbreaking look on Steve’s face as he takes off his helmet looking at daddy.

“3000?.”

“That’s all there is.”

“Have you figured out the female voice yet?”

“Voice recognition shows nothing.”

“The man?”

“There was never a clear shot to get his face for facial recognition.”

“Why are there two separate videos?”

“They overlap each other, as if recorded at the same time but they are not the same videos. Perhaps this is the regret your father was speaking of. The second video came from your father’s helmet he left for you. The first video is an anomaly. I can’t trace it’s origin. It’s like it never existed.”

“Is it a glitch in F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s system?”

“Perhaps. I’ll run a diagnostic on her. It will be nice to speak to her. I haven’t had the chance in a while.”

This year for Christmas MJ gives birth to a perfect baby boy, properly named PJ.

“Why didn’t you name him Tony?” Parker tells me “I have a feeling Tony is meant for you to pass on one day.”

It’s the day after Christmas and the words Strange said to me ring through my ears as I sit at the 3D computer console. “You finished what your father started.”

I have 3000 pull up the quantum realm file, along with the functioning time gps. I listen as Scott Lang explains that time is different in the quantum realm, it’s linear. My physics brain goes to work. A linear realm is only one dimension.

Ordin Ordinson hid the space stone in a what he named the Tesseract, a third dimension cube.

“Oh, Scott. Didn’t Dr. Pym ever teach you about the five dimensional theory instead of trying to create a Quantum Realm?”

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m back at the console. Something about the QR just bugging me. Like old times Dum-E and Totes are beside me. Time wormholes. Pym was trying to create a time wormhole. Why though?

“3000. Pull up the unit circle. Now add the holographic principle.” I look at the circle full of strings.

“Pull up daddy’s functioning time gps ratio and add dots to the end of each string.”

I pull daddy’s data over to cover the circle and pull it out to a cone.”

“Now add…..”

“Equation successful.” 3000 crows as the sound of fireworks are going off in the distance as midnight strikes.

“Hey, 3000. Can you hook that up to my bracelets?”

“Done.”

“Shit.” Oh, daddy. You were so very, very close.

It’s January 1st 2038, well my time at least, and I’m standing looking at a sixteen year old Steve sitting on a park bench, sketching. It’s the day I went back to my timeline when I was fifteen. July 5th 1934\. I go sit beside him but he keeps his head down. He’s been crying. He gets up and walks away in a hurry, dropping one of his sketch pads and some pencils. I follow him, bending down to pick them up then stop myself at the next bench. I open the pad to see, me. It’s the one he keeps on the crate by our makeshift rooftop bed. I go to the last page and write a quick note.

“My Love,

I did not leave you. I was taken from you against my will. Please, do not give up on me.

Your Love, your bride, your Ria. I love you, infinity, my husband. Always.”

I jog to catch up to him, which isn’t very far he’s walking so slowly now. So defeated. “Sir, excuse me! Sir!”

He stops and turns around, he keeps his head down, not looking at me.

Just look at me, Steve, I try to will. Listen to my voice. “You dropped these.” I hand him the pad and pencils, my fingers lingering over his scratched hand.

“Thank you, ma’am.” He says without looking up, turns and walks away.

My next stop is our rooftop, two hours before I appear in the park. I see my shoes and socks at the end of the bed. I had forgotten I was barefoot when I started running downstairs. I look at the bed where our daughter was conceived. I take the note from under the ring box, putting it in a compartment in my suit.

I’ve gone from hidden compartments in backpacks to hidden compartments in armor suits.

I remove the chain from my neck, taking off the ring and putting it in the ring box after kissing it. I ignore the tears streaming down my face. “I love you, Infinity.” My neck and chest where it rested against my skin already feels empty.

He’ll have a real bride one day and if he and Peggy were as close before he went into the ice as Bucky said, he’ll want it for her.

I leave everything else as is.

I go down to my old room, opening the broken floorboard bank leaving the note that says “for Steve’s art school.” I find the note Steve gave me with the dress for church I had on when I got sucked back into my time from where I kept my underwear, I grab it and them as well to sleep in.

I go stealth, transporting to my next time destination.

Finding Mrs.Rogers asleep in the early morning hours of a cool Autumn morning isn’t hard. I can hear Steve tossing and turning on the couch. I place my gauntlet covered hand on her upper arm as the needle containing the tuberculosis vaccine punctures her skin.

This I can give Steve.

Then I return home.

When I enter the cabin Dum-E and Totes great me. No time paradox. No signs of an alternative timeline. I put away my new sleepwear and frame my two notes, adding them to the wall. Bucky’s words of Steve trying over and over to join the army set my next time visit.

That is until I look up Steve’s file.

Steven Grant Rogers. Subject of Project Rebirth.

Father deceased by mustard gas.

Mother deceased by pneumonia.

What. The. Fuck.

What did I do? She died anyway. Same date. Different outcome.

I change my plans for my next transport. Then set my coordinations and pull out a dress I haven’t worn in a few months for my next jump.

It’s raining, which seems oddly fitting. Bucky is standing next to Steve. A few others scattered about. The cemetery is eerily quiet. You can hear each rain drop as they hit the stones surrounding us.

Then again I’m used to death by now and the atmosphere surrounding it. Steve hasn’t grown an inch but he’s changed. He’s face is a bit more mature. He slumps over more, his scoliosis is getting worse, it also makes him look like he has the weight of the world on him. The light in his eyes gone. He’s wearing that same suit from before that barely fits him but shows time has passed. That same damn piece of hair falling over into his face that my fingers itch to touch.

The rain is soaking him and he doesn’t care.

Bucky is standing there with his hand on his shoulder. Towering over him. He doesn’t look as war torn as the Bucky training with Harley at the compound. Still innocent.

The casket is simple. The ceremony short. I’ll be eighteen in a few days. His age again. I wonder if I walk up to him and tell him I want to go home if he’ll take me. Make a home with him, if he’d let me take some of that burden off him.

Find a real home. A house. Make love by the light of the moon. Where he promised to find me as many babies while he goes to art school and gets that job as a cartoonist.

I watch his back as he walks away, hands in his pockets. A feeling that even if I stayed and tried he’d still end up in a block of ice.

I just had my first taste of time finding a way to make what is meant to be happen.

If I can’t save Steve’s Mama for him, how am I supposed to save my own father? Unless time demands a trade.

It’s the first ever Stark Expo but instead of being interested in my grandfather I’m dressed as a nurse looking for Dr. Erskine. That I find walking the hallways. He gives me a quizzical look. “You. Do not belong here.”

“I understand I’m supposed to be in the medical…”

“No. You do not belong here period. You, are not from here. Are you?”

“Strategic Science Reserve.”

“No. You are not but you know of them. Tell me. Ze good part or ze bad part?”

“The I know a good man not a perfect soldier part.”

He looks down at the medical file, taking it from my hand. “Show me. He becomes this? Destroys Hydra?”

“Yes. He has a thing for bullies. Walk around the corner down the hallway. Find out for yourself.” I blink away as Dr. Erskine turns his head.

I walk by as Dr. Erskine congratulates Steve on making it into the army.

I’m there when Steve meets Peggy Carter for the first time. A half smile on his face when she punches one of the jerks.

I watch as some dick named Hodges knocks the wire on top of Steve. He may have gotten a not so friendly neighborhood spider in his bed that night. I stay in stealth mode as Steve falls backwards on the rope ladder, pulls the pin out of the flag pole, making Peggy’s blue eyes sparkle and jumps on a grenade.

The stubborn Irish idiot.

I spend one day jumping a six month time period to watch him do his basic training.

When the day arrives for Project Rebirth to actually happen, I’m once again dressed as a nurse. Everyone stops and stares at the skinny kid.

Fools.

I take the opportunity to accidentally bump into Howard with my gauntlet cloaked at the ready to take a blood sample. Of course he isn’t that nice about it.

My grandfather is an asshole. No wonder daddy had parental issues.

I give Steve his penicillin shot, I can tell he’s nervous and run my hand down his arm. He still hasn’t recognized me. Of course I’m five inches taller, a bit more rounded in the hips, my face has gotten softer and have actual C cup boobs.

I watch as he and Peggy exchange looks. As they inject him. As the light starts to glow and Peggy yells “Shut it off.” But my stubborn Irish idiot of a man that has never met a bully insists he can take it. Why must everyone underestimate him?

I’m trying to give Steve a shirt when Peggy takes it from me and yes I notice her try to touch him. I behave myself and don’t smack her hand. Then all hell breaks loose. This was so not in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files. I watch Steve bend next to Dr. Erskine as he points his finger against his chest and then he runs off. I also notice the bullet hole with red around it in the side of his shirt, that is no longer bleeding.

Howard’s blood comes back with no DNA anomalies.

They make him a singing advertisement and he hates every moment of it.

I stayed cloaked as Steve sits there drawing, Peggy coming up behind him. I watch as he gets in a Jeep after threat of Court Marshall to go rescue Bucky. I fly beside him as he descends into enemy territory. I might hit a guy or two as he’s helping Bucky out of that room. I hear the word experiments.

No wonder Bucky doesn’t want to talk about it but why is his file wiped except for the basics?

The stubborn Irish idiot. I close my eyes as he jumps over a flaming hole fifty feet in the air trying to remember to breathe.

Have I mentioned stubborn Irish idiot?

I’m sitting in the pub watching him talk to Bucky. Okay. Really need to find out about that and why that file is empty but I did promise him I would let him tell me when he is ready. I see Peggy enter in a red dress, the way Steve looks at her up and down, drinking in her blonde hair cut in a short bob and blue eyes. As they gaze into each other’s eyes talking of dancing. Then I blink away.

An empty pint of cookie dough ice cream might have made an appearance in my trash that night but I am neither confirming nor denying that I was the one that ate it.

Okay.

I was totally the one that ate it.

I send Miss Sex Kitten off telling her Phillips is looking for her and then drag Steve in between two shelves planting a long waited kiss on him, begging him to recognize me, before Peggy interrupts us and he follows her like a little puppy.

Not.

Jealous.

No.

Okay.

Maybe a bit.

Okay, a lot.

Shit.

I blink away. I already know what the next two years bring. Although I peak in once or twice because Steve fighting is sexy as hell but Steve on a motorcycle. Well, wrong time and place for those thoughts. It’s when I see Bucky fall into the depths of the mountains from a train that has me frozen in terror. 3000 is unable to locate him.

His file did say presumed dead but surviving that fall? I start to wonder if he’s a Super Soldier.

I change into my catsuit. “Hey, 3000. How powerful is the transport system?”

“Ah, Antonia. Are you really thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“Most likely.”

“Yes. We can make it there and then.”

“Well then 3000 let’s activate and go pay Halfworld a visit.”

I’m sitting on my couch at home. It’s January 3rd and I haven’t time jumped yet today. Knowing he ends up okay I still can’t help but argue with myself.

I don’t want him to be alone. I set my coordinates to April 5th 1945.

The Alps in April are a gorgeous site to take in but unfortunately site seeing is out and stopping a plane is in. I’m in the Valkyrie, if my timing is correct Steve and the Commandos are infiltrating the last base. If there is no plane to go down, then there is no Captain to be frozen.

It’s selfish of me, I know, denying the Avengers Captain America. He can have a life here, with Peggy. Children, a family. I have 3000 go over the schematics of the plane. The engine. There’s no way to disarm the bombs. Transporting them is not safe, they’re unstable. How they didn’t detonate when he crashed is an enigma.

The engine it is. If this plane can’t get off the ground then it can’t fall out of the sky either. Auto pilot working, check. 3000 disables the engine in less than thirty seconds. I transport out to go see how Steve is doing.

Red Skull has escaped, I fly behind the car as it speeds along the runway. The fucking plane started. It wasn’t supposed to start.

I watch as he leans down and kisses Peggy, her short blonde hair flowing in the wind. My heart aches a tiny bit at that but I put it aside for now. 

I transport into the ship in time to see Red Skull holding the Tesseract.

The Tesseract. The space stone. It’s powering the engines. Oh, Antonia, you idiot.

A portal to space opens and he becomes a blurred translucent vision as he is sucked into the portal. Then the Tesseract falls, burning through the metal down out of the plane into the depths of the ocean below. 

Oh, Howard. Really should have left it there.

I hear Steve tell Peggy he has to crash it into the ocean. I stay stealth, laying my hand on his shoulder standing behind him in the pilot’s chair.

_“3000?”_ Please tell me it still works.

_“Auto-pilot unrepairable.”_ The Tesseract portal fried the auto pilot.

_“3000, solutions.”_

_“None available.”_

_“The bombs?”_

_“The cold will stabilize them.”_

_“Can we transport them then?”_

_“Wherever we transport them to will cause automatic detonation.”_

_“Nazi Germany, the middle of the Atlantic.”_

_“Antonia. They’re atomic bombs.”_

_“That’s why they didn’t go off when the plane crashed. The cold got to….we can freeze them. Can you…”_

_“Freezing process activated.”_

I could transport him out now and let the damn thing crash itself. Screw Peggy and him having a life with her. I could take him home with me, to a safe cabin by the lake. If I’ve learned anything though it’s that if the Universe wants it, the Universe gets it.

Steve is meant to become an Avenger and fight in the next century. He’s meant to fight aliens and killer robots. Meet Thanos.

The Universe wants Captain America.

I swallow, close my eyes and listen as he and Peggy talk, tears in her voice. My brave stubborn Irish Idiot. She tells him she’ll teach him to dance and I remember a night on a rooftop as two pairs of feet barely shuffled as our bodies moved together. Then, well.

I grab Steve as the plane crashes into the ice, missing the water, letting the power of my suit cushion our fall as he lands on top of me. His eyes are open. I switch to cloak mode “ _deactivate right gauntlet”_ and lay my hand against his cheek as he looks directly into my eyes, his hand covering mine as the cold surrounds us. The movement of the airplane reversing our positions as I lay on top of him now.

_“3000, turn my other gauntlet into an oxygen mask.”_

_“Antonia, it won’t sustain you both for long. It’s too cold.”_

_“Do it!”_ I Place my left hand over Steve’s nose and mouth. Feeling him take a deep breath.

_“Antonia. The temperature is getting to him. The thermostat on the suit will not last much longer. He’s not breathing anymore.”_

_“Deactivate helmet.”_

_“Antonia…”_

_“Deactivate helmet!”_

I lean down and touch my lips to his, our lips mingling for just a second as he tiredly tugs on my bottom lip. A soft, tired “My, Ria.” Then after starring deeply into mine, his eyes close and he drifts off to sleep. “I’ll be back for you.” I promise in a whisper as I lean my forehead against his.

I tap my head and the helmet reappears. I watch as Steve slides out of my grasp and down the ice already forming around the inside of the plane. I transport out and watch as the plane sinks into the water. Not leaving until it’s fully submerged.

I transport to his barracks. Open his locker, take two army issue tees out. Next I go to his trunk. I find books on military, his sketchpads and pencils, but it’s at the bottom I find a rose color scarf of lace carefully folded and wrapped in paper that has been repeatedly opened by the looks of it with the words for my bride to wear one day. A ring box with his grandmother’s ring still inside and a note from his Ria with a sketch of the both of us now on it. I transport back home with the contents of his locker and the entire trunk.

I frame the sketch and the paper my scarf was wrapped in then carefully put away my scarf in my top drawer after wrapping it in parchment.

I find my silver chain and place the ring back around my neck. He had plenty of time to give it to her. I’m claiming it back now.

I step into the shower, stripping naked as the water cascades over me, as hot as I can stand it and sob for my love as I slide down the shower stall wall.

When I get out I dress in one of Steve’s army tees and a pair of jean shorts. I walk into my living room to see Stephen Strange sitting on my couch. “So, you did go back then.”

Shit.

I walk out of my house into the yard. Into the memorial garden to be exact.

“Are you here to yell at me about creating an alternative timeline?”

“Actually, no I’m not and you didn’t. The timeline remains intact. I remember everything exactly the same.”

“What do you want Strange?”

“I know you’re not a fan of mine. After your father. After the Doomsday War.”

“Did you know my baby was going to die?”

Strange is taken aback. “What?”

“In your 14,000,605 timelines you saw, did you see my baby die?”

“No, I didn’t even see you pregnant much less the death of Brooklyn.”

“You said I didn’t create an alternative timeline. They still find him, right?”

“Yes, he gets found.”

“But daddy is still dead and Steve goes back to 1945 to Peggy.”

Strange, for the first time in my lifetime since his return, remains silent. He sits on the bench, looking around the asphodels then back at me as I glare at him.

“I know you hate me for what I told your father. You should know I didn’t tell him about the five years after or that if I told him, it wouldn’t happen. Your father died saving the world, yes, but he also died to buy it more time. Buy you the time you needed to take care of it.”

“What?”

“Time is…..fickle. Time has a way.”

“No shit time has a way. I have a PhD in Physics. Particularly Quantum Physics. I get timelines.”

“You want to go back.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“You can’t give me what I want. I want to know my dad. My mother before she lost her shit. I want what Steve and I talked about on a rooftop one night under the stars.”

“What if I told you that’s possible?”

“I can’t go back to 1934.”

“You already did that. He didn’t recognize you. Yes, I know. The park, the nurse, Erskine, the funeral, the plane. Visiting other planets.Yet the timeline remains. My memories remain the same. What does that tell you?”

“But time can’t be changed. I already tried. The plane proved that. Steve being encased in ice proved that. Fuck his mother dying proved that.”

“It’s not talking about changing time. I’m saying you have the possibility of making a few adjustments. Like answering the question of how Jarvis becomes Stark’s butler if he’s from here.”

“You’re not telling me the whole truth. I thought we talked about the cryptic assholery thin? Just what are you saying? You said you can’t see what’s going to happen.”

“I can’t see the future, no. It is still blocked from me. You’re an intelligent young woman. I’m saying Antonia Stark, you can go back but nobody can know it’s you. Take from that what you will.” Then he opens a vortex and disappears.

Have I mentioned cryptic asshole lately?

I walk into the house and sit at the 3D computer with daddy’s Iron Man helmet sitting on top. “3000. Can you hack into what’s left of F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“What am I looking at Antonia?”

“A date. April 26th, 2023.”

“What are you looking for?”

“All of it.” All of it I did get along with the voice but not the face of the pretty lady I saw talking to Strange at daddy’s funeral.

After sitting there for six straight hours I have a sudden understanding of Pym, Hydra and time wormholes. I still don’t know what it has to do with Thanos though. All I know is 2014 Thanos found a way to 2023 after he was killed, a bit too late by Uncle Thor five years earlier.

I stay up all night having 3000 find old S.H.I.E.L.D files and watching daddy’s videos again.

Shit. No wonder daddy talked about past regrets. They were fucked from the start.

I call the same friend that helped build the compound, sending him the blueprints 3000 helped me come up with to start renovating the cabin. It’s time for a fresh start. I’m turning daddy’s office into my oversized bedroom that will be connected to the garage, my workshop now. The pieces daddy built into the cabin will remain untouched.

The memorial garden and Brooklyn’s resting place will be seen from both places using wall windows that you can see outside at the touch of a button but look like the rest of the house looking in. I decide on fifteen extra bedrooms. We have plenty of land. None of the trees are to be touched. The dock either. It will remain one story. It’ll be a sprawling mass but it will be home.

I also add a four bedroom guest house.

It’s time for me to move out of my childhood bedroom and put the past behind me, while I visit it to see if what Strange meant what I think he did.

In the meantime Strange sends me his configurations he finally was able to compile after all this time on how many multiverses there are.

Huh, who would have that we’d be that one?

I need to pay April 6th 1945 a visit to take care of some business and then 2003 to Bruce Banner.

I already read his file before, figured out how his arm turned black, made the DPA bracelet that helped and wonder looking at the schematics for his experiment just how the hell he didn’t die. The official report conflicts his research report. Especially since he too has daddy issues. Who experiments on their son? Sorry, Bruce but I’m going to have to break the professional doctor code and do some adjustments on your work.

On January 6th I dress in a suit, put on a pair of glasses and pull my hair up into a chignon.

I meet Bruce Banner for the first time, damn he was cocky. I’m quick to introduce myself with the first name I can think of, Dr. Ginny Hogan, when I bump into him. I slip into the lab where his gamma experiment awaits. Oh, Bruce. Are you seriously trying to kill yourself? No, Bruce is too smart for this. Someone has tampered with it. I make a few adjustments, add some DPA to his serum, then blink away.

I go home and change into my catsuit, grabbing the two tranquilizer shots. Then it’s off to 2009.

I shoot a blast of sonic waves at a running Hulk, knocking him to the ground long enough for me to tranq him.

He groggily walks around before falling.

I kneel next to him. “Oh, Bruce. I’m sorry about the tranq darts but I need you to listen to me. You’re going to be okay you know. I understand saving Betsy but you would have saved us so much trouble if you had let Ross burn. I need you to listen to me. Not Bruce but you Jolly Green. You have a long journey ahead but you’ll get there. I’m going to need you one day, we all are. Bruce is going to try to shoot himself. I need you to stop him. So, go find yourself and get your shit together. Please, forgive me for turning you into this but I couldn’t let you die during that experiment. Especially after everything your father did to you. It would have killed you. I don’t know what kept it from happening before. You have a purpose. Both Bruce Banner and The Hulk. We need you both.”

It’s December 16th 1991. I start by checking the brakes of the car that are in perfect working order. The light pinch that Howard feels is 3000 taking a blood sample. There’s no alcohol in his system. I stop the elder Starks with red lights at every chance. After it passes the reported time of their death, 6:55 p.m. and accident scene, I blink back home.

I won’t find out for awhile but I really should have stayed five more minutes.

I can hear giggling and a skanky blonde woman is draped over my daddy. Really? That’s what you go for? Intimacy issues. Being left issues. Oh, I could have a field day.

But I’m not here to analyze my daddy’s sex life or his choice of skanks.

I’m his daughter, I’m allowed. Plus, I know a skank when I see one.

I’m here to find a stalling tactic to keep him from getting on a plane. I already have an interview set up at Stark Industries.

I look around his workshop that is more of a garage. Daddy’s into cars. Fast, expensive cars. That says a lot.

I see a small workbench with a, is that supposed to be a computer?

“If you look on the table there are two small discs that he is currently obsessively working on. The size of pencil erasers. You, young lady are not supposed to be in Mr.Stark’s home much less his garage. No matter the use of transport.”

“J.A.R.V.I.S.?” I stop in my tracks. It really does sound like Edwin Jarvis. That is asleep. At the compound. In 2038.

Shit. I forgot about his A.I. security.

“Take the prototypes and go. He will never know you were here. Might I suggest putting them in his desk at S.I.? He’s very protective of them and I believe the security system will be updating shortly. In five minutes perhaps.”

I see the two discs, grabbing them. “Thanks, J.”

I blink away before I hear “Be careful, Antonia.”

I’m placing the discs in the drawer of daddy’s desk when I tell 3000 “That was smart, linking into his A.I. like that. I didn’t even realize you did it. Didn’t tell him who I am, did you?”

“Got to watch out for my girl and no. Just told him you are a friend trying to help Tony.”

I sit at my computer console at the cabin as 3000 replicates an Infinity Stone gauntlet, linking the program to my suit along with the ability for my suite to make weapons at will.

On January 8th I dress in a pair of worn jeans, sneakers and a black hi-lo hoodie sweater with the hood pulled up over my hair then blink off to 1993.

I follow Nick Fury as he waits in line at a sandwich shop, mumbling to himself as he leaves. I’m not sure what to say to him. If I should even be doing this. Then I think of Steve, in the ice and feel the ring against my chest.

I watch as Fury stops at an empty crosswalk. Step up next to him a few feet away and say the first thing that comes to my mind.

“Shield” I say and it begins.

On my eighteenth birthday, January 9th of 2038 I dress in a suit, put my hair up once again and place the glasses on my face.

Dr. Ginny Hogan had a nice ring to it, so that’s who I’ll be.

I tell 3000 the time and date of our next jump.

“Okay, 3000. It’s time to say hi to daddy and mother. Let’s see just what we can adjust here on our Earth-1.”


End file.
